The Dublin Book Festival started today. Apparently they even invited some poets. Yeah, I know, but you know what poets are like. Fucking liggers. You can’t keep them away from an opening and they’d suck Satan’s cock for an invite.
Tubridy will be there for a public discussion on on Ireland learning from its history. Which is kinda ironic given what’s just happened in the election.
“Ryan, how do you feel the people have learned by fisting your party halfway to oblivion?”
Anyone got any good book recommendations?
The last two I read that were good were ‘The Motel Life’ by Willy Vlautin and ‘The death of Sweet Mister’ by Daniel Woodrell. If you like American writing then you’ll like these.
Maybe there’s just something about the vast familiarity of the US that makes them so readable. Do we have Irish equivalents? I don’t know that we do. Or if we do who are they?
And it’s not Sebastian Barry, that’s for sure.
Update: And speaking of Tubbers, check out this load of old shite. Apparently he’s being visited, in his dreams, by Gerry Ryan. To be fair, it’s not uncommon at all to dream about someone after they’ve died.
The cynical amongst you might suggest it’s clever and media friendly bollocks designed to pull on the spasticated heart strings of the masses.
“I’m ok”, Gerry tells him. Erm, no you’re not, you’re dead.
I bought Room by Emma Donoghue. I jut started it. I will review it. If I do like it it will be the first book written by a female that I’ve liked.
I did just get this recently too and it was good
http://i55.tinypic.com/hvb1nt.jpg
if you see turbridy, piss on his shoes please.
Looks like we got ourselves a reader.
The last Irish book I read was Shane Ross’s and that just wound me up so, sorry, can’t help you there.
If I do like it it will be the first book written by a female that I’ve liked.
WOW. That’s .. .a thing.
I’m scared I haven’t read anything since the last time you asked :(
What was that werewolf one again?
The Snowman – Jo Nesbo
“Best crime thriller since The Silence Of The Lambs”
i read it and it is brilliant
slightly off-topic, but I think that “No Logo” and “Toxic Sludge is good for you” should be added to the curriculum.
It will give kids a little ammo to use against the bullshit and spin that they’ll be subjected to as aduls.
it might also teach them to spell “adults”
Has anyone read Lorraine Keane’s book?
War by Sebastian Junger
Why you never want to go to Afghanistan
Hey I have nothing against poets.
In fact some of my best friends…………have nothing against poets either.
Post updated with some more Tubridy related bollocks.
I don’t want to say too much about poets. I’m afraid they’ll serve me with their vicious rhymes. Like the rhymenocerous.
Just finished reading DBC Pierre’s Lights Out In Wonderland: a fast and furious satire on capitalism and contemporary decadence-although a little too in love with that which it is supposed to satire, in my opinion but it has a scene that involves sex with an octopus and that alone should sell it to just about everyone here.
Octosex … you don’t get much of that in fairness
It is rare…at least I hope it is.
I heard the reason Paul the football predicting octopus died is because Russell Brand rode him.
Octosex … you don’t get much of that in fairness
In fact, the last person to have it was the Octomom. And look what happened.
Tubridy forgot to mention gerry was probably eating quail eggs marinated in rhino fat!
I heard the reason Paul the football predicting octopus died is because Russell Brand rode him.
– bet he didn’t see that coming?
Tentacle rape seems to be an in thing these days. No doubt it’s all the fault of the Japanese.
Ned O’Keeffe would never be referred to as an orator, no. To have poets you need to have people with a command of vocabulary, roots and grammer of a language. Education now equals ‘training for the workplace’ which is an entirely different thing.
It is no accident that the great modern high-tide of poetry coincided with having the best of orators in parliament or Senate.
From Senator WB Yeats in November 1925;
‘There are two great classics of the eighteenth century which have deeply influenced modern thought, great Irish classics too difficult to be taught to children of any age, but some day those among us who think that all things should begin with the nation and with the genius of the nation, may press them upon the attention of the State. It is impossible to consider any modern philosophical or political question without being influenced knowingly or unknowingly by movements of though that originated with Berkeley, who founded the Trinity College Philosophical Society, or with Burke, who founded the Historical. It would be but natural if they and those movements were studied in Irish Colleges, perhaps especially in those colleges where our teachers themselves are trained […] In Gaelic literature we have something that the English-speaking countries have never possessed – a great folk literature. We have in Berkeley and in Burke a philosophy on which it is possible to base the whole life of a nation. That, too, is something which England, great as she is in modern scientific thought and every kind of literature, has not, I think. The modern Irish intellect was born more than two hundred years ago when Berkeley defined in three or four sentences the mechanical philosophy of Newton, Locke, and Hobbes, the philosophy of England in his day, and I think of English up to our day, and wrote after each, “We Irish do not hold with this”, or some like sentence. Feed the immature imagination upon that old folk life, and the mature intellect upon Berkeley and the great modern idealist philosophy created by his influence, upon Burke who restored to political thought its sense of history, and Ireland is reborn, potent, armed and wise. Berkeley proved that the world was a vision, and Burke that the State was a tree, no mechanism to be pulled in pieces and put up again, but an oak tree that had grown through centuries.’
That’ll do for me.
Bird Alone by Sean O’Faolain – I can see why it was banned.
Started Voices from the Grave.
Reading eh? Remember Bill Hicks?
Watcha readin’ FOR??
Not, ‘what are you reading, no, what are you reading FOR!!’
Maybe so I don’t end up being a waitress in a fucking waffle house!
Saramango’s Blindness came heavily, prehaps too heavily recommended. If you haven’t read ‘Homicide: A year on the Killing Streets’ by David Simon, you really fucking should, likewise The Corner, by the same author. Did you read those Cicero / Robert Harris ones? They’re good. Imperium and such. Page-turners like.
Moving gaff at the minute, so all me books are packed away, mostly reading the paper and am particularly enjoying the Sunday Times, which is a great read of a Sunday. Good riddance to the Sunday Tribune, it was crap for years.
The Sunday Times is an MI5, anti-irish piece of shit. That, the Sunday Independent and RTE keeps free-thinking in it’s box.
The Sunday Times, Murdoch, MI5, agenda – cunts.
Jo – no big deal, I’ll think you’ll find that most bookshelves are populated 9:1 by male v female authors. I’m the opposite with music; I’ve got a ratio of 9:1 in favour of women over the last 5 years. It’s just a matter of taste, nothing more, nothing less.
Always suspected itchy might be bisexual.
Heh
Music break is my only reposte
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxALQQyaJaE
Billy Bragg is OK in my book!
Sunday Times is the only – by MILES the only – paper that will break news on a Sunday. Culture is awesome. AA Gill rules. If you want to free your thoughts, do some yoga.
Anyone watching Treme btw?
Sunday Times treatment of John Hume
Q.E.D.
We all know recessions bring about a slew of holy floaters and blood-teared statues, but to think Gerry Ryan has started creeping into Tubbers room at night? Perhaps that paycut is affecting him more than we think.
Tubridy is a prick and has just picked up on that Sleb habit of attaching themselves to any mawkish story doing the rounds.
Its like Peter Andre releasing a press statement sympathising with Amanda Holden on a miscarriage. May never have met the woman in his life but thats not the point. Its meme massage.
fucking liar cunt. surely it was a nightmare
A book I would definitely recommend is Charles Palliser’s “The Quincunx”. A really great read. Be careful how you pronounce the title though, it can lead to misunderstandings.
Regarding Tubbs and Gerry, that all sounds like a very wet dream indeed.
Flann the man.
Impossible to argue with him
Spring is here – just saw a whopper of a bumble bee in the garden!
I didn’t know Flann was an accountant.
I have just finished the third book in the Millennium series – “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest”.
If you read nothing else read these three books. Outstanding and the first two movies are good too.
“I didn’t know Flann was an accountant.”
Aren’t there blasphemy laws to deal with this kind of slander?
Whats wrong with Sabastian Barry? Read ‘A long long way’ and it was an eye opening account of Dublin and Dubliners during ‘The great war’ unlike the accounts of the period spoon-fed to my generation and older when at school. Although I may have missed your point.
I heard him on the radio a couple of months ago and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone so quite up their own arse talking about their writing.
Mossy, I’m nearly finished “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”, and it is brilliant!
The Millennium Trilogy by Steig Larson is great reading, I’d highly recommend it to anyone.
Also the Wallander books by Henning Mankell are terrific, the bleakness of the Swedish landscape is wonderfully evocative, like an alien planet.
I’m so impressed with Swedish fiction that I’m going to Sweden in the summer, to soak up the atmosphere. (ie: Get drunk, and embarrass myself by doing Swedish Chef impressions.)
Flann O’Brien v Seamus Heaney in a Celebrity Death Match would be over in a split second
Thats a shame! Remember lovin’ the doors when I was a kid but after reading a biography of Morrison just couldnt listen to the band again, now years and years later I can listen to a couple of songs now and again but it taught me early on to avoid anything about the personal lives of the ‘artists’ I admired and just to keep with the books, music etc . So he’s a cunt huh! Ah well, not so surprising for a successful ‘serious novelist’ all the same, I prefer the genres meself
You know you like Philip Larkin..
Went looking for the name of a book of short stories and thought it was by this person , which it wasn’t – but this is class anyway – by Barry McKinley
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2008/aug/03/hope-i-die-before-i-get-old
for this line ( after the other lines)
“and I turn into Super Paddy, the conflicted comic book hero who doesn’t know whether to fly, cry or sing ‘The Fields of Athenry”
No current books on the go – read blood meridian before Christmas – judge holden – next level up from Kurtz and ahab – the Delawares frighten the shit outa me.
” the bleakness of the Swedish landscape is wonderfully evocative, like an alien planet.”
Well, dere ye go boy! What we need is some clever Irish fella to write a murder triller set in de Burren!
There’s too much diddly diddly propaganda from Irish writers.
It’s as if time stood still and Ireland is frozen somewhere between the 30s and 50s, where women brought tea out to the men in the fields in milk bottles, where men drank pints at the bar and women stayed home to knit, and comely maidens were ten a penny at every crossroads, dancing like maniacs with their red curly hair in ringlets.
De Valera’s dream, much like Mao’s doctrine, a false deceptive oppression of the masses, while themselves amassing wealth that will go on for generations.
Just like Charlie Haughey and Bertie Aherne, in other words.
All that shit should be banned, and not propped up by the Arts Council and other grant happy fuckers.
Yeah I read Blood Meridian in the last year, it’s brilliant but it is pretty scary. They’re making a movie apparently, which makes no sense, because the book makes no sense and is ultra-violent.
I really enjoyed the Millennium Trilogy books and the movies. I wonder how Hollywood will fuck them up? By the way Silla – how was The Human Centipede for you?
You’re dead right Silla. I’m sick to the teeth of Irish naval gazing literature. The constant search for something to blame other than ourselves.
the millenium trilogy is pretty cool but
The Sandman – Jo Nesbo
is the best book mentioned here by far
Crank, I recorded it and I haven’t had the nerve to watch it yet. I’m building up to it, tonight’s the night.
I will obviously watch it alone, as I am ashamed to let anyone know I’m watching it.
Except everyone on here. Who don’t really count when it comes to being embarrassed.
Went to see God of Carnage in the Gate the other night, pretty good, and the theatre is lovely. I was never there before, but the atmosphere is so civilised it made me hate the likes of the O2 even more. I hope I never darken that door again, what with the loooong walk from wherever you park your car, to the loooong walk when you queue up, to the looong walk when you get inside, to the looong climb to your very expensive seat in the rafters, to the the looong walks back to earth after watching the show on screens, cos unless you have telescopic sight, you’re seeing nothing otherwise.
Cunts, cunts, cunts!!!
Weird one for writers. Do they write a searing condemnation of gombeenery or do they ignore it? With the former they get accused of misery lit and with the latter accused of an unrealistic view of Ireland.
There’s a great book waiting to be written about the psychological state of the Irish people and their associated neuroses. That’d get right the fuck up a load of noses which is always good.
I loved Room by Emma Donoghue, thought about it for a while afterwards. It kind of creeps up on you as you’re reading it.
Also read The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, which was pretty good.
Recently read The Help, about black women in the 1960s in America, being maids for white women. I really enjoyed that one, but I think it might be a bit wimmin-ly for you Twenty!
Do you read any of the Lee Child/Jack Reacher books? Hmmm, dunno if they’re your cup of tea.
Sounds like free porn to me
World Book Night
Saturday night is World Book Night and several of Ireland’s largest publishers will be giving away 1 million free books across the country to members of the public in what is being described as “the most ambitious and far-reaching celebration of adult books and reading ever attempted
Alan Tuffrey (Cricket Umpire) will be hosting one of these events at Malahide Cricket Club at around 10pm this coming Saturday night 5th March 2011 and copies of Seamus Heaney’s ‘Human Chain’ will be given away to anyone who wants one.
ALL WELCOME
Yeah I read Blood Meridian in the last year, it’s brilliant but it is pretty scary. They’re making a movie apparently, which makes no sense, because the book makes no sense and is ultra-violent.
Maybe you need that landscape. Ireland’s too small to be that evocative.
Ludicrously, my little side-project book review blog is shortlisted for a Mulley Award, so that means I get the final say on what is good and what isn’t.
If you want something fresh and recognisable about the Ireland we actually live in then ‘There Are Little Kingdoms’ by Kevin Barry is yer only man. He has a novel coming out next month called ‘City of Bohane’ that adavanced reviews are creaming themselves over.
For more Americana I would recommend ‘Arkansas’ or ‘Citrus County’ by John Brandon (you’d have to order citrus County online, as it’s not out here for a while) or ‘Swamplandia!’ by Karen Russell, which I’m currently enjoying.
What book review blog?
This dude has hugely impresses me.
Dog Soldiers and A Flag for Sunrise
http://bigthink.com/robertstone
“There’s a great book waiting to be written about the psychological state of the Irish people and their associated neuroses. That’d get right the fuck up a load of noses which is always good.”
I am sure that an equivalant tome on the German speaking Swiss would do wonders in looking into the world of insecurity, neuroses, self-satisfaction and parochialism.
@ andrew
“If you want something fresh and recognisable about the Ireland we actually live in then ‘There Are Little Kingdoms’ by Kevin Barry is yer only man”
that’s the book of stories i was rtrying to recommend but had a brain fart on the name – top class
What a fucking day out there. Amazing.
“the secret agent” or “Nostromo” by Joseph Conrad are pretty fucking awesome. Plenty of words in there too, you won’t be getting through them in a Ludlum or a Brown
“Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt. There was a landscape to be envied.
The name ‘Aifric’ is just so fucking pretentious. Seriously, if I have kids, I’m calling them Michael, Mary, John. A name is for life, long after organic free range gushing is out of fashion.
I’m off to the pub.
Andrew’s book review blog – was just about to suggest: http://slightlyread.blogspot.com/
You mean to say Gerry is ok? Praise be to jesus. That’s fabulous news all together.
What did Turberly say back I wonder? “You’re not ok Gerry, you’re a bollix. Fuck off and stop giving me nightmares”
But wouldn’t you think he’s tell his family he’s ok, and not that tosser Turberly.. I’d be pissed at that if I was related to Gerry. Did Tuberly ever think of that no? What a spastic.
a book called shantaram [gregory david roberts] you will not put this book down;a little slow at the start but a fine read.
OTD, Shantaram is one of my favourite books, I love it.
The descriptions of life in the slums of India are fantastic, not at all “worthy”, and fascinating.
I also like Anne Rice, particularly the Interview with A Vampire series.
W B Yeats was fucking barking mad. I don’t know if it was related to his poetitude.
This is just awesome
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Queen-Victoria-Demon-Hunter-Moorat/dp/144470026X
yes anne rice has a amazing imagination another great read
lisbeth salander is a big turn on in that trilogy
Maggot, I think it was the other way round, his poetry is brilliant because he was nuts.
That Queen Victoria thing reminds me of the Doctor Who episode with Queen Victoria being pursued by something or other.
Barbra Streisand. The autobiography. Great sleeping aid and for swatting bugs in the summertime.
Silla – it’s a wonderul read.
I’m not sure about WB – he got madder as he got older and his poetry went from OK to crap.
yes crank hollywood will fuck the trilogy up big big time’read the trilogy in ko pang yang out of me head on mushies shakes most of the time lol
OTD, what a glamorous life you lead!
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe is a good book, set in the 50s in Northern England, very witty.
yes will have a look at stilltoe. more madness than glamorous silla
the loneliness of the long distance runner. now i have him silla
Fuck me OTD. I found Stieg Larsson hard enough to follow with all me faculties, what with all the characters and their odd names and the numerous plots and sub plots. Can’t imagine the books making any sense on magic mushrooms (but I wouldn’t mind giving it a try!)
done the reading in the morning the mushies at night at one stage thought the books was about me fucking madness for six days
Hah! Remarkable.
just give me one more day on the sand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEURzw1X7c
Wow, looks beautiful, OTD.
Definitely worthy of something that lends itself to a little psychedelia and other worldly-ness.
I’m sure that’s not a real word, but you know what I mean.
i remember getting on this otd and thinking to myself “ah jaysus. this the type of shit you read about. ferry capsizes.” And my friend who lives makes his living in thailand saying to me
“And you the way you can’t swim itchy?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Well .Thai people aren’t great swimmers but they think westerns are excellent swimmers. So they’ll all make toward you and be swinging out of you”
“Ah shit”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXgSqk4SwSg&feature=related
It was a very choppy day and the open front on the ferry.. I was thinking zebrugge disaster
No Health and Safety mafia, there, then, Itchy.
I thought it was just me being a wimp thinking of tsunamis and earthquakes, ferry disasters and coach crashes, but it seems we Irish have been brainwashed into being scaredy cats.
it seems that every month you hear of a ferry disaster or a coach disaster in asia too silla. so there’s reason. i drove by a moped with 6 girls on it going to school. they are a bit too fatalistic for my liking down that way. though they make up for it with kicking food
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I-BSAcjk4vQ/TA0Xce1PIDI/AAAAAAAAA3w/rVasg5q8ZYU/s1600/T+06.jpg
(googl thai schoolgirls riding)
HERE! HANG ON A FUCKING MINUTE! WE IN NORTH COUNTY DUBLIN PURPOSEFULLY DID NOT ELECT THIS CUNT.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0303/breaking54.html
itchy you will have a job getting past the first hundred pages of room, repetitive as fuck, but make sure you do, its a brilliant read.
nice one sniffle been looking for the name of that little kingdoms book for years.
the stig larsson books are the best thrillers ive read in years.
finished a thousand splendid suns last night, excellent stuff, starting the boy in the striped pjs tonight.
The stig larsson books had an unsettling undercurrent in them
I agree, Maggot.
The death of Larson gives a frisson to it, as well, though his girlfriend is now claiming he left outlines for 7 more books, but she is engaged in a tussle with his family for control of the publishing rights, so I don’t know how much you can believe.
The family say there are no more books.
Having become engrossed in the story, I’m almost finished the last one, and I love to hate to finish a book, if you know what I mean.
It’s been a while since that happened, I can offer no higher recommendation to anyone who hasn’t been seduced by Lisbeth Salander.
The Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan were also disturbing though engrossing. He too has died and I have yet to read the final book.
Itchy, sorry to hear that your seemingly successful effort to relieve Darragh O’Brien of any legislative power was snatched away by the former leader of Fianna Fail. There will be a few nice Seanad surprises.
I’m reading The Boat by Nam Le. It’s a series of short stories, sometimes, but not always, interlinked. I’m only half way through, but it’s outstanding and I’d seriously recommend it.
I read The Golden Spruce by John Valiant last year. It was engrossing and definitely one I’d recommend. Wouldn’t be the type of book I’d normally go for, but being unemployed, broke and desperate to fill a few hours I’d try anything. (Except heroin, self harm or Oprah Winfrey).
I like a lot of Ian McEwan books, but read his most recent, Solar, a few months ago, and it was brutal.
Maggot, I too enjoyed the Wheel of Time series, but he had tended to slow things down too much at times. The last two books (volumes 12 and 13 ?) were co-writted by Branson Sanderson who at least upped the pace a little and tied off some of the sub-plots.
Are you getting the orgasms you derves. Dr. Root.
Best read ever.
Shantaram is the most overrated book – every bloody backpacker is going around with a copy thinking they are some sort of intellectual. About 700 pages too long.
@ andrew
“If you want something fresh and recognisable about the Ireland we actually live in then ‘There Are Little Kingdoms’ by Kevin Barry is yer only man”
This is a great collection of stories. I read them a year ago or so and all those images still rattling around in my head. Highly recommend this.
I’ll defo get his novel when it comes out.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is a great read.
And Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck is probably the best and funniest short story I have ever read.The nicest bunch of violent alcoholics I have come across.
You should do one of these posts every cupla months.I get some good recommendations out of it.
off topic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/quiz/2011/mar/01/muammar-gaddafi-charlie-sheen-quiz
Off topic – for itchy:
A Cambodian, a Japanese, a Korean, a Chinese, a Burmese, a Philippino, a Vietnamese, a Malaysian, and an Indonesian walked into a bar. The bartender stopped them. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in without a Thai!”
Dara O’Brien appointed as Senator?
He wasn’t elected as a TD so his appointment is even more offensive for that reason. FF will never learn will they?
Maybe someone has a bit of dirt on O’Brien that he wouldn’t like people knowing about.
Holemaster says:
March 4, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Maybe someone has a bit of dirt on O’Brien that he wouldn’t like people knowing about.
*COUGH*