In Missing Presumed Dead, Arlene Hunt taps into the most basic, prescient fear of parents – that of a child going missing, but what makes her book interesting is that she explores the fall out of what happens if that child returns. In 1980, a two year old girl called Katie goes missing on a…
Following the shooting dead of a friend in his home during the height of the Troubles, the poet Michael Longley said …when somebody walks into a home where there is a smell of cooking and where BBC Radio is playing music and takes out a gun…they are offending the gods really…they are desecrating civilisation. They…
When asked why he chose to set his first crime novel in the US, Irish writer John Connolly said, ‘Because in Ireland everybody would’ve known who done it within days.’ Exaggeration aside, in the pre-Celtic Tiger landscape of Ireland, this may well have been the case, but it certainly isn’t nowadays as Irish crime fiction…
Growing up in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s, anyone interested in reading would be familiar with the Irish Writers poster. My Dad had the poster framed in his study and I had one on my bedroom wall, along with a set of Irish writers coasters. For several years I even had an Irish Writers…
I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year. ~ Edna St. Vincent Milay For over 50 years, 84-year-old William Trevor has written about the passions simmering beneath the surface of a world where hens are fed, confessions are said and the clock on the scullery…
I thought I knew Roddy Doyle and his work, but really, I didn’t have a clue. The Commitments, The Van, and The Snapper – I had read and enjoyed them. Everyone in Ireland did in the late 1990s. The movie adaptations were fun. The warm hearted, foul mouthed family focused characters were the stock in…
Read more No 689 The Woman Who Walked in to Doors by Roddy Doyle
It’s March, so that can only mean one thing. it’s Reading Ireland Month! Join myself and Niall at The Fluff is Raging as we spend the next four weeks celebrating all that is wonderful about Irish books and culture. It’s not going to be any craic without you, so grab the pin and add the…
When planning for Ireland Month, I brought together a list of 100 books by 100 Irish authors, both out of interest for myself and to give anyone thinking of taking part some inspiration for what to read. I thought 100 might be a little much so cut it down to 50, however since publishing it…
If there is a downside to writing a Booker shortlisted, critically acclaimed, best-selling, universally loved book like Skippy Dies, it may be that readers come to your first, lesser known novel and find themselves disappointed in it by comparison. This seems to be the online consensus and if I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting to like…
Last year we went to a holiday house in Donegal. There, on the shelves, I found a copy of Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scripture, about an unconventional woman wrongly put into an institution which is about to close, harbouring secrets of the past that will ultimately change the lives of all involved. It was a…
Read more No 710 The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
Book Reviews By A Geek
Our adventure through life and homeschooling in the UK
Joy in reading and life
Books reviews with the occasional interview thrown in for good measure
Books, books and more books
Books, reviews and more...
Writer
746books.com 