the746 – Page 5

No 535 Maeve Brennan Wit, Style and Tragedy: an Irish Writer in New York by Angela Bourke

Maeve Brennan, like her fellow New Yorker writer Mary Lavin, is one of those Irish writers that everyone should have heard of, but whose body of work hasn’t received the attention it deserves. In Wit, Style and Tragedy: an Irish Writer in New York, Angela Bourke aims to redress that balance and to return Maeve…

No 540 Girl with Green Eyes (The Country Girls #2) by Edna O’Brien plus giveaway! #readingirelandmonth19

It’s week two of Reading Ireland Month and this week I will be highlighting classic Irish literature. Last week saw the launch of the programme for the 2019 Dublin One City One Book festival, which this year features The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O’Brien. The Country Girls Trilogy joins a long list of illustrious…

No 542 Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

I have been sick this week and while flicking through the book library on my iPad came across Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. I have no recollection of buying this and no knowledge of plot or author. This is not unusual when I look through the 746, but in this case, it worked to…

No 544 Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks

Lost Memory of Skin is the first book I have read by acclaimed author Russell Banks, my only previous experience of his work being the film adaptation of The Sweet Hereafter (which I loved). Lost Memory of Skin is, in some respects, a strange book and one that I think is may be not the…

No 547 Animals by Keith Ridgway

A few year ago I read, and loved, Hawthorn & Child by Keith Ridgway. A surreal esoteric detective novel, its weirdness was wonderful so I was highly anticipating this earlier novel, Animals. Ostensibly, Animals charts the mental and physical breakdown of an unnamed narrator, as he wanders around his city and becomes terrifyingly aware of…

No 553 Ice by Anna Kavan

Anna Kavan’s Ice has been labelled many things. A straightforward apocalyptic sci-fi tale; an allegory of (Kavan’s own) heroin addiction and/or the cold war; a before it’s time warning about the dangers of climate change; a feminist response to misogyny and abuse, or a Beckettian work of the traumas of the inner mind. All these…

No 554 Player One by Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland has long held interests. Since his debut Generation X over twenty years ago he has regaled with tales of pop-culture, society drop outs and the impending end of the world. That he still muses on these themes, twenty years on means that in a good way, you pretty much know what you are…

No 631 GraceLand by Chris Abani

Chris Abani has suffered for his writing. Imprisoned on several occasions by the Nigerian authorities, once when he was only 16, he now lives in America, the country that has a powerful cultural pull on the characters in GraceLand, his debut novel. Indeed, Abani explores both Western and Nigerian themes to create a unique perspective…