print edition 28.09.2008

Entertainment

Open the door to your own private imaginings

By Katie Bateman

IF we are to believe Jeannette Winterson, reading is like sex, "If it's any good; it sets up seismic shifts in the body and mind". However, no short course at a university dares make such a claim, but six sessions at the workshop, 'Talking about novels, memoirs and biographies' on Tuesday nights from October 7 to November 11 in UCD's Arts Block, will invigorate the imagination, or, as Shaw put it, in The Doctor's Dilemma, "stimulate the phagocytes", and start the habit of a lifetime of immersion in the culture and mores of characters who sometimes appear no less real than our friends and relations.

Fragments Of A Late Gnostic Poem Of The Twelfth Century

By Herman Melville

Found a family, build a state,

Wolff offers a feast of stories to be devoured slowly

By Ronan Farren

Our Story Begins

Double act at the heart of classic crime novel

By Anne Marie Scanlon

One freezing cold Sunday afternoon about 15 years ago, my mother was walking around the Upper East Side of New York. In the window of a thrift store she spotted a painting of a woman who was her absolute double.

CHILDREN'S BOOK COMPETITION

Gambon plays it for laughs

Is Piers the most annoying man ever?

Stiller, the reluctant comedy king

Cars and guns aplenty, but no weapons of mass distraction

Good vibes as Milt and Wes relax

Cullen rightly plays Trump card

Today's Paper

Video Highlights

(video)

Oldest woman defeats Everest again

Watanabe reached the summit from the Tibetan side on 19 May, at the age of 73 years and 180 days. That day, more than 200 climbers were aiming for the summit on the busier southern route in Nepal. Four died, apparently from altitude sickness and exhaustion, on one of the deadliest days on the mountain.

(video)

Irish players prepare to pack bags for Euro 2012

Republic of Ireland stars preparing to pack their backs for Euro 2012 training base have been making the most of the summer sunshine in north county Dublin. There is a small matter of their Euro 2012 farewell friendly against Bosnia first. Shane

(video)

Gazza get his tongue out again

Gazza, capped 57 times, last appeared in an England shirt against Belgium in 1998 and now he wears the Three Lions once more as England gears up for Europe?s biggest football tournament