If there’s one thing Roddy Doyle does brilliantly, it’s dialogue, so it’s no surprise that his Two Pints books have distilled his writing down to that bare minimum of speech.

Two Pints and Two More Pints started life as extended Facebook posts on Doyle’s page and have now been published in two slight books. They are essentially a string of conversations between two middle-aged men who, on various dates from 2011, sit on bar stools drinking their pints and having short, sharp conversations about their home, wives, kids, celebrities and whatever is in the news – all the while trying to make sense of the world from the wisdom of the bar stool.

Imagine Norm and Cliff from Cheers as imagined by Beckett but very, very funny and you’re part way there.

All topics are covered – the financial crash; the deaths of celebrities like Whitney Houston, Robin Gibb and Donna Summer; Obama; the whereabouts of Colonel Gaddafi (a cleaner at Dublin airport apparently); the Olympic Games; football and George Clooney’s recent wedding.

29 September 2014
– Is it quiet in your house?
-Jesus, man. It’s like a morgue. A fuckin’ empty one.
-Same in my place. Have to be careful about every little fuckin’ thing.
-A pain in the hole.
-I even had to tell her the dinner was lovely – earlier, like.
-Wha’ was it?
-Can’t remember. But it was grand. So I wasn’t lyin’, but –
-Fuckin’ Clooney.
-Clooney.
-Wha’ the fuck was he doin’?
-What he’s done – what he’s after doin’ – it’s worse than fuckin’ climate change, so it is.
-Wha’?
-The world needs at least one good lookin’ bachelor that isn’t actually gay. A man who’s gettin’ better lookin’ as he gets older.
-You’ve given this some fuckin’ thought, haven’t yeh?
-Well, I’d nothin’ else to do an’ she was clutchin’ the remote like it was Clooney’s langer. So, yeah. The women need to know there’s always someone else – a bit better, like – out there.
-And now there isn’t.
-Exactly. Because tha’ fuckin’ eejit has gone an’ upset the natural order o’ things. Fuck knows what’s goin’ to happen now. War, famine –
-No ridn’.
-The end o’ the fuckin’ species.
-He’s a thoughtless prick, isn’t he?
-A bollix.

Dialogue has always been Doyle’s forte and he plays to his strengths in these collections which have the concision of poetry and the comic timing of a master. From world breaking stories to local Irish TV adverts, two years of news are distilled into the essence of comedy and told through a particularly Irish perspective.

If you’d like to win a hardback copy of Two Pints and Two More Pints just comment below or share this post on Twitter. The raffle will continue until Saturday at 6pm and I am happy to post worldwide! Unfortunately the Guinness can’t be included!

The Rules

1. Anyone can enter. You do not need to have a blog.
2. You need a post-office recognised address anywhere in the world, where you can receive packages.
3. Simply comment on this post, or share the post via Twitter to be entered. If you want to comment, but don’t want to win the books, just mention that below.
4. The giveaway will run until Saturday 7 March at 6pm. The winner will be picked using randompicker.com
5. I will notify the winner by email. The winner need to answer my email within 3 days, or I’ll announce a new winner.
6. The books will be posted at my own expense as soon as possible so please be patient if you are a winner outside of the UK!

Good luck and do check in later when I’ll be reviewing The Woman Who Walked in to Doors by Roddy Doyle.

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