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Holy sunflowers! How Batman drove Van Gogh out of town

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Not even The Joker could have dreamed up a get-rich scheme like it. Last month one enterprising geek inherited the earth when he auctioned an ultra-rare May 1939 first edition Batman comic for a record-smashing $1.075m.

a treatise with plenty of meat . . .

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Until now, 32-year-old New York author Jonathan Safran Foer was known for his quirky best-selling novels Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close. Until now, he has sold hundreds of thousands of copies (675,000 at last count). Which is why it is surprising that, five years after his last novel, his latest book, Eating Animals, is a non-fiction treatise on the American meat industry and manifesto for vegetarianism.

making sense of all this madness

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

The title suggests that you're about to read a self-help book and in a way that's what Sarah Bakewell provides for this age of diaries, blogs, memoirs and endless self-analysis -- an age, as she says, that is "full of people who are full of themselves, fascinated by their own personalities and shouting for attention".

Henry may be a star, but he fades just a little as his story ends . . .

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

This new novel is the final volume in Roddy Doyle's "The Last Roundup" trilogy, which began to appear in 1999 with A Star Called Henry. The second volume, Oh, Play That Thing, was published in 2004 and now the roundup is rounded off with The Dead Republic.

despite the bleakness, alice left us laughing

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

ABOUT THE BOOK:

'Striped Pyjamas' voted No 1 book of the decade

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

THE first draft took just two-and-a-half days to write but that didn't stop 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' from becoming the number one book of the decade.

Birthing pains of a perfect mother

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

In My Mother's Shoes

Sharp and accurate spots-and-all story of adolescence

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Skippy Dies

Satisfy your hunger for great books, food and conversation

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

We're used to France appealing to our gastronomic senses, but the Franco-Irish Literary Festival, which takes place next month, will provide food for the mind.

Review: The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

About one-third of the way into Linden MacIntyre's novel The Bishop's Man, its hero, Father MacAskill, surrenders to the idea that the forces of law and order in Canada might be better relied on to deal with clerical child sex abuse than the Church.

Review: Love in the making by Roisin Meaney

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Thirty-something Hannah Robinson is about to open her first business, a cupcake shop in her small hometown somewhere in the west of Ireland. But Hannah soon has more to worry about than the logistics of making a new venture work in the face of a recession: just days before she opens Cupcakes on the Corner, her boyfriend Patrick throws her small world into chaos, packing his bags and leaving her for another woman.

Review: Solar by Ian McEwan

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

What is it about Ian McEwan that has elevated him to the status of "Greatest Contemporary English Novelist?" "He is this country's unrivalled literary giant," according to the books critic of the London Independent.

Review: The Penance Room by Carol Coffey

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

This book is not for the faint hearted, but at least it says as much on the cover. For starters, from the title the readers will know not to expect chicklit. And then, there's the clear explanation that it tells the story of people whose "past is a nightmare" and whose present is "without hope".

Review: The Secret Diary of Gerard Manley Hopkins by Robert Waldron

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Visitors to the annual Hopkins Festival in Co Kildare are surprised at the global following which the English poet attracts. A convert who had gone on to become a Jesuit priest, he came to Newman's Catholic University in St Stephen's Green, in 1884, to teach Greek (not English, as Robert Waldron suggests). Hopkins remained there until his death five years later and is buried in Glasnevin. He is, as a result, regarded as a prominnent part of the Leaving Cert English course for many years.

Review: The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

SET mainly in Campania, Italy, in 1970, with later short snippets of narrative taking its gloomy hero Keith Nearing up to 2009, The Pregnant Widow is a tottering puzzle of a novel that's unlikely to further enhance the reputation of Britain's most inventive writer of fiction. Is it about lost youth and the business of growing old? So it seems, but these are inevitabilities most of us manage to come to terms with: not -- it seems -- Martin Amis, who is now 60 and clearly hating every second of it.

Review: A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

In David Milch's astonishing HBO series Deadwood, there is an episode about the murder and burial of Wild Bill Hickok.

Review: The Loss Adjustor by Aifric Campbell

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Campbell's 2008 debut The Semantics of Murder showcased her flair for depicting the grittier side of life. Her new novel The Loss Adjustor sees her hone her narrative skills while continuing to explore the daunting themes of loss and grief.

Finnegans second wake

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

The impenetrable Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, is about to be reborn and, for Joyceans, the event will stain the white radiance of eternity with its effulgent rays of truth and comprehension.

sex and tax and rock 'n' roll

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Richie had been a famous singer, he and the glamorous Chrissie had decorated the pages of gossip magazines, but in recent years his career had begun to fade, along with his royalties. Chrissie, enraptured by his talent, had dedicated her life to managing Richie's career, but her loyalty hadn't exactly been reciprocated.

close-up of a small town

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

This is the latest novel from award winning actress-turned-writer Kate Thompson. The earlier The Kinsella Sisters, about two sisters reunited in the west of Ireland after their father's death, provides the backdrop and main characters here.

Readers re-Joyce: Finnegan brought right back to life

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

CRITICS agree it is James Joyce's most difficult book, putting 'Ulysses' in the ha'penny place when it comes to leaving a reader perplexed.

Turn up for the books a novel idea

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

EAGLE-EYED bookworms might spot a stray novel in an odd place this Thursday. But should you find one on a bus or a park bench, don't leave it there -- it's yours to take home.

Author storms children's market

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

It has always struck me that writing for children -- particularly of the pre-teenage age-group -- is one of the more challenging literary genres. With shorter attention spans, they need to be kept enthralled from the outset. "People are used to their 30-second fix of whatever it is -- be it the YouTube clip or the video game. People talked about the demise of the book a long time ago, but there is still a big group of kids out there who get immersed and lost in the story," says children's author Alan Healy. "You do have to try and keep it taut, and exciting ... you can't let the line go slack."

The child of her times

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Just Kids

Real love beyond 'smoke and mirrors' of romance

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Couples: The Truth

Migrants lost in shock of the New

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

A Century of Silence: Echoes from a Massachusetts Landscape