Goodreads Ireland discussion
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What Are You Reading
No, his name is his proper name, but as he was older than my friends and I, we couldn't work out who he was when we heard he was from our area. It was through his description of the house his character lived in that we were able to make the connection that he was 'Gareth McKinty's big brother'! :)
I haven't heard of him, Cphe, but I looked him up there, and wonder if it's because he's from the south as opposed to the north? McKinty, Neville et al can play the 'troubles' card and talk about 'personal experiences', which the US market will eat up, but McCarthy has to rely on historic events. Just an uninformed observation, I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons as well! :)
I finished The Confidential Agent recently. It seemed to me that Greene didn't know what kind of book he wanted to write. He started off with one of his "burnt out cases" whose wife had been shot by a dictatorship and whose young friend had been thrown out a window for helping him. Then, inexplicably, the book turned into a romantic comedy when the same character fell in love with a beautiful society heiress half his age who of course was equally smitten with him. It was very annoying to see a writer as good as Graham Greene switch gears that way. He should have known better.
Theresa- I'd like to read more Rupert Brooks. Mentioning him made me think of Yeats poem 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold'.
Having finished both my physical and audiobooks, today I started reading the reissue of Fathers Come First, a book that was apparently both popular and controversial when published in Ireland in 1974. I'll be starting to listen to My Brilliant Friend in the morning.The holiday reading plans are coming together well already...
Just finished Fahrenheit 451 and all I can say is the mind boggles!! Will def need a day before I start anything else to mull it over.
Seraphina wrote: "Just finished Fahrenheit 451 and all I can say is the mind boggles!! Will def need a day before I start anything else to mull it over."Well it sounds like a provocative read.
Allan- I had to look up Fathers Come First - actually I thought it was by Rosita Sweetman and was right. I think I have an old Pan edition somewhere and read it quite a few years back.
Emma, I think, from reading around the novels, that Fathers Come First may be a little blunter than Country Girls, but they do seem similar thematically. There's a quote on the cover by Nell McCafferty saying that she'd be embarrassed for any man reading the book, given the attitudes of men portrayed in the book that were widespread in the 1970s, and I can see her point...
Enjoyable as my book about the obscure Eveny tribe in Siberia is, there is room for another ongoing read. I am definitely in a non-fiction phase and have started The Dynamics of War and Revolution: Cork City, 1916-1918 by John Borgonovo of Cork University. My father was a young boy living in the centre of the city in those years and the events that unfolded around him had lasting effect although he rarely referred to them.
BTW I hope Kevin and Sara are enjoying the MOOC. Wearing my historian's hat, it is superb and the use of primary documents is excellent. When Barbara and I did the course there was a great deal of sharing of family history which really brought the period alive.
BTW I hope Kevin and Sara are enjoying the MOOC. Wearing my historian's hat, it is superb and the use of primary documents is excellent. When Barbara and I did the course there was a great deal of sharing of family history which really brought the period alive.
Theresa, the book sounds very specialised, but at the same time, right up your street! Enjoy! :)
Thank you, Allan. It definitely is yet another book of mine that nobody else will read so I wont be creating a discussion thread LOL.
Once I go back to fiction my Christmas books will be top of the list so please don't think your gift wasn't appreciated- that goes for Donna's Secret Santa book as well. :)
Once I go back to fiction my Christmas books will be top of the list so please don't think your gift wasn't appreciated- that goes for Donna's Secret Santa book as well. :)
Theresa - I would live to read more non-fiction this year. One of my in-person book clubs tries to alternate between fiction and non-fiction. We're reading Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention for May which is a hefty 600 pages. A GR's friend Ted posted a review of a book about Isabel of Spain which is also around 600 pages and appears to be only available in Spanish and German. It looks like an amazing read so I hope it comes out in English. I am not sure I am up for reading 600 pages in Spanish.I dipped into a kindle book last night Stop, Thief!: The Commons, Enclosures, and Resistance which is non-fiction and has an interesting premise - the growing encroachment of private property. Last Saturday when I went to my book club I noticed new signs on all the streets surrounding blocks and blocks of new townhouses. The public street spaces were all reserved for tenants of specific townhouses. I thought, what!!! Taxpayers own the streets not the residents. Two residents of the town where we meet seem unperturbed and said "oh well". I am one of those who drives down public streets that are closed to thru traffic during certain hours. I pay taxes for those streets and don't think I should be stopped from using them during certain hours. If that makes me some kind of radical, so be it:) And I am venturing off into the chat arena.
Due to the terrible weather we've been having, when I went to my TBR shelf yesterday, it was Paul Lynch's Red Sky in Morning, with its tale set in the rain soaked wilds of 1832 Donegal that jumped out at me, and I'm glad I made the choice. I have previously avoided the book, fearing from articles that I've read that the prose might be overwritten, but it's both gripping and evocative, and as a result I've already ordered his second novel.I've also been listening to My Brilliant Friend, equally evocative of a different time and place, this time the poorer areas of post war Naples. I notice that they'll be staggering the release of the other two in this trilogy over the next few months, and given their list price in physical form, it'll be on audio that I'll go for them as well.
Two excellent books to continue my so far productive holiday, reading wise anyway.
I'm assuming that a lot of other people in the group will probably be either finishing work today for an Easter break or may have already finished. Does anyone else have any special reading plans? :)
I'll be going for All the Light We Cannot See on audio as well, I reckon. I've had it in my Audible wishlist for a while, so the monthly read will be as good a time as any to purchase!
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I enjoyed reading this book. I received it free from Minotaur Books, the publisher, through the Goodreads giveaway program. This book takes place in the West Texas desert town of Artemis. There is a dangerous wildfire threatening the town. It is eventually contained with only a few homes burnt up. One house that was almost completely destroyed has a body in it. Police Josie Gray investigates and realizes that this house fire was not part of the wildfire burn area.
How she pieces together the murder with only a 3 person department makes for an engrossing mystery. Not until almost the end did I realize who the killer was. She is also dealing with personal problems--the love of her life left her after he was kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel(subject of a previous book in this series).
This is book 4 in the series and I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the previous books, but it can be read as a stand alone.
I give it 4 of 5 stars.
There is a line in the book concerning the oppressive heat:"..ten straight days of temperatures above one hundred." This past winter was one of the coldest ever for me, with Feb. 2015, being the coldest month for the last hundred years in Buffalo,NY(the whole month it never got above freezing-0C/32f). This was a good book to read during a cold winter.
I wish I had a holiday right now, but it's nearing the end of the semester and tax day so no extra reading time.I like to have an e-book on the go so after I finished Wee Rockets, I started the e-book The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende and have several other books to finish as well:)
Tax day ??? Do americans really have to sit down and do there own taxes. You see it on tv but it looks a bit surreal compared to our setup
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Allan wrote: "Due to the terrible weather we've been having, when I went to my TBR shelf yesterday, it was Paul Lynch's Red Sky in Morning, with its tale set in the rain soaked wilds of 1832 Done..."Alan, we didn't have classes today for Good Friday, so I have a long Easter weekend. We're going to our niece and her husband's for Easter Sunday, so I'll have some time this weekend to get immersed in All the Light We Cannot See. It's been a chopped up month, with lots going on, so I'm happy to get a bit of uninterrupted reading time.
Paul wrote: "Tax day ??? Do americans really have to sit down and do there own taxes. You see it on tv but it looks a bit surreal compared to our setup"Yes. And it's a pain. One of my good friends has had a difficult year--unemployed for some months, a very sick sister, and so she's been overwhelmed with life stuff. She called me in a panic because she can't find her tax statements and other important papers she needs to complete her taxes. What a crummy thing to have to go through.
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Paul wrote: "It always looks so stressful on tv"It is extremely stressful and like Thomas I use software. When I lived in Boston, before there was software, I always had someone do it. It's now so complicated and even though I worked out with payroll that they take out more deductions, it seems I still owe money. I have done most of the work, but have to go through things again tomorrow. Some years I am still doing them on the day they are due. If you own a home here, and have business expenses, you get deductions which is when it gets complicated. No matter how early I start, I always end up stressed. We don't get our info from our employers til the end of January so we really don't have an endless amount of time.
Is there no uniform holiday in USA for Easter then?
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Paul there is Tax Days here ( File and Return October 31st ) :P just the stress is transferred to your accountant if you don't do them yourself ( yes business wise) but people also sometimes have to do tax files (CGT/CAT)It is what i have to work forward to when i get a graduate position lol Tax Returns sorting out receipts from Shoe boxes lol then imputing them in software.
I may be in USA for Tax Season next year ie January to April 15th.
Allan wrote: "Is there no uniform holiday in USA for Easter then?"
the only uniform holidays are :
George Washington's Birthday; Memorial Day; Labor Day
Columbus Day; Veterans Day; MLKJr Day ( Since 1983)
plus a number of other federal holiday.
Easter is recognized as a flag day due to it being on a sunday i believe some business close for good friday.
But since USA has no official Religion,Easter Monday isn't a public holiday as it is here. (Good Friday isn't a public holiday here)
Gavin wrote: "Paul there is Tax Days here ( File and Return October 31st ) :P just the stress is transferred to your accountant if you don't do them yourself ( yes business wise) but people also sometimes have t..."Good Friday and Easter Monday aren't holidays, but there is/was a custom in some areas that were heavily Catholic to close 12-3 on Good Friday. I don't know if that still occurs, even though I live in Maryland, the home of the Catholic Baltimore Catechism.
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I received this book free from the publisher through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. It is a funny book with some laugh out loud stories. One of the funniest is "A Christmas Story" about when he went hunting on Christmas Eve day with his son and his son's friend. The friend shot a buck with a medium sized rack of antlers. His son asked him to take it to the processor. I can't say more w/o going into spoiler territory.
I give it 4 out 5 stars.
I finished Pride and Prejudice (in French), No et Moi (in English No and me) by Delphine de Vigan, who is a French writer. And now, I'm reading "In the Siberian Woods", but I don't know if the French title is translatable like this; the writer is Sylvain Tesson. (Tell me if you know these French authors ;) )
I did notice you flying through the books in updates. Great reading long weekend
Yeah you've really flown through the books this weekend Emma. Sadly I have had very little reading time. I have been reading Lady Audley's Secret for about two weeks. I'm enjoying it though, it's not a page turned in that the answer to the mystery seems to be laid before you very early and now you have to sit back while the clues are pieced together. Unless it's a clever ruse. Hmmmmm
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So, I'm over 75% through the audiobook of All the Light We Cannot See, and while I'm enjoying the story, I'm not feeling blown away by the book in the same way as many others in the group have been. I'm not completely sure why yet...I'm also nearly 200 pages into Iron Gustav: A Berlin Family Chronicle, which is episodic in the way Dickens can often be, due to the fact that, as I found out in the introduction, it was written specifically for adaptation to screenplay in 1938. At nearly 600 tightly printed pages, it's a mammoth read, but I reckon that I'll get through it over the next few days, making the most of the rest of my Easter break.
Today I read the adventures of Robin Hood by j.walker (don't you just love the delayed Irony of the authors name?) Which I really enjoyed though I didn't like the ending chapter - each chapters like its own short story (don't worry it's arranged in chronological Order) I'd still totally recommend it despite slight misgivings about the end chapter. I also read the strange case of Doctor jekyll and Mr.hyde today which was cool
I am listening to and reading (thanks to whispersync) We Are Not Ourselves - mammoth 600 plus pages and 21 hours of listening. I am not impressed. It's an epic about first generation Irish Americans, and I am feeling "so what". But as I am one-third in, I will finish it.
Barbara, I'd noticed that both yourself and another group member had added this, and I was intrigued by the blurb. Not worth investing the time in, then?
Definitely not. It's so ho-hum I don't know what the fuss is about. And long books tend to annoy me profoundly unless they have merit such as a book like East of Eden which deserves to be lengthy.
I finished The Boston Girl and really enjoyed it .I have started The Fields and am not really liking it at all.I will finish it but it might take awhile.Not many people if any in the group that have read it like it.I remember Declan hated it so I don't feel out of the norm but then I started Room and I'm not liking that either.I'm only in the first chapter but did anyone that read it not like it in the beginning and went on to love it ? I feel like I should love it but right now its a painful read.
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I received this ebook free from the publisher through NetGalley.com. I give it 4 and 1/2 stars(rounded up to 5). It is a crisp western set in 1880s Texas. It was an easy read--2 days for me. Ellie Taine is a widow running a ranch when a group of escaped convicts kidnapped the daughter of her foreman. She goes after them with the girl's mother, because the father was shot during the kidnapping.
This book is a sequel to a previous book by Crider, Outrage at Blanco, which is now on my to be read list of books
The writing reminds me of westerns written by Elmore Leonard. I learned about this author from my GR friend Col. Thanks Col!
Colleen wrote: "I finished The Boston Girl and really enjoyed it .I have started The Fields and am not really liking it at all.I will finish it but it might take awhile.Not many peo..."The Fields was not well received by this group either - especially Dubliners who found the portrayal of Dubs to be somewhat insulting, if I am remembering correctly.
Colleen wrote: "I won The Black Snow from Goodreads !"I entered that giveaway also. So glad one of us won.
@colleen, I read room quite a while back so its hard to remember when I started enjoying it. A very disturbing read but well written I thought
Barbara wrote: "Colleen wrote: "I finished The Boston Girl and really enjoyed it .I have started The Fields and am not really liking it at all.I will finish it but it might take awh..."Your remembering correctly Barbara ,Declan hated it!
Barbara wrote: "Colleen wrote: "I won The Black Snow from Goodreads !"I entered that giveaway also. So glad one of us won."
I wish we both won.
Seraphina wrote: "@colleen, I read room quite a while back so its hard to remember when I started enjoying it. A very disturbing read but well written I thought"I have read the first chapter and you're right its very disturbing.I will be reading this one chapter at a time.I don't think I can take more than that at one time.
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Goodreads Ireland
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Geographically, for some reason, he calls his female lead Victoria in that one, meaning that he can't use the Victoria Road as a setting, and in the book, his main character lives in McKinty's proper childhood home, not on Coronation Road as he claims in some interviews (that's where his grandparents lived) but in a nice bungalow 'on the road directly after the supermarket' as he describes it. How do I know where it is? Because the house he describes is directly opposite the house my mate grew up in!
It was from that description that we were able to work out exactly who McKinty was, as he wasn't as well known as an author at the time he published this one, and was a number of years older than we were. His brother, Gareth, did used to run about with my mate's big brother though, and we were able to work out who he was from there! :)