The History Book Club discussion
CHALLENGES
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THE EMERALD ISLE - READ IRELAND CHALLENGE
Michele, I went to hear Tim Egan speak last night and he talked about his work on this book. I am a big fan of Tim Egan and bought this book. It really sounds like a great story, and if you have ever read any of this author's work you have a good idea of how well he tells a story and brings people, places, and relationships to life. Will be interested to see your review.
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Timothy Egan
My first book was
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C.S. LewisSynopsis: In Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis speculated on what visiting a different world (on Mars) might be like, particularly an older, more established, and less corrupt one than our own. This second novel of the space trilogy is C.S. Lewis's idea of what the Genesis story might be like if God chose to create a newer world of living creatures, including persons, on the planet Venus. It is also a speculation of how human beings, with our own sad experience, might help them avoid our mistakes. Lewis's talent for creating believable characters, creatures, and fantasy worlds is just as good and as absorbing here as in The Chronicles of Narnia. As with the first book the main themes of the novel are of course the struggle between good and evil and the great privilege and responsibility of free will. Already looking forward to reading the third book in the trilogy, That Hideous Strength.
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C.S. Lewis
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C.S. Lewis
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C.S. Lewis
My second book was: 
by Unknown translated by
Seamus HeaneySynopsis: Beowulf is set in a time of small kingdoms that alternately carried out wars of conquest or raids, and formed alliances with one another. Christianity had been well established, but it was still new. The atmosphere kind of reminded me of Sigrid Undset's Norwegian saga Gunnar's Daughter that I read some months ago. Beowulf is a Geat warrior (I got the impression that the Geats are a Scandinavian tribe) of noble birth who lands with a small army to help the Danish king get rid of the monster Grendel who has been terrorizing the people by carrying out nighttime raids and killing people in gruesome, X-rated ways. After Grendel, Beowulf has Grendel's mother to deal with, then in his own country decades later he has to dispatch a dragon that was roused when a thief stole something from the treasure hoard it was guarding. Basically, it is the story of Beowulf's achievements as the protector of the people and teaches the lesson of courage, self sacrifice, and resolve in the face of evil. No vacillating Hamlets here.
Today, people watch Game of Thrones, back in the early Middle Ages I guess people sat around a fire at night and listened to someone reciting Beowulf. The story was fast paced and Heaney's translation had a terse, majestic style that really helped me to visualize the events in my head. This edition has the original Old Anglo Saxon English text on the left page and the translation on the right, and I did think that since I know English and have some knowledge of German, I would be able to read some of the original, but picking out an occasional word or phrase here and there was all I could manage.
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Sigrid Undset
Third book:
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Oscar WildeSynopsis: Oscar Wilde was a great storyteller, and Dorian Gray is a morality tale. Dorian starts out as a very handsome innocent young man who sits for a portrait for his artist friend Basil Hallward while urbane, sophisticated, cynical Lord Henry whiles away the time chatting and introducing subtly corrupting ideas into Dorian's head. Such ideas and his continued friendship with Lord Henry ultimately lead Dorian into a life of hidden vice. Meanwhile, Dorian discovers that by some miracle, he has become mysteriously identified with his portrait. It begins to show signs of each vicious deed he commits, while he remains physically unchanged to the point where he does not even age. The portrait, which might have helped moderate Dorian's lifestyle by serving as a visible conscience, actually helps to accelerate his corruption because it detaches him from the physical consequences of his vices. The problem is that the physical effects of vice are not the only ones: there is the damage to his reputation, damage to other people's lives, and also damage to his own soul.
I think Wilde may have meant this story to criticize how society places too high a priority on appearance and not enough on substance, and also to show how a growing discrepancy between appearance and substance becomes impossible to keep up in the end.
Mod
I plan to start with "How the Irish Saved Civilization" and "Dubliners."
by Thomas Cahill
by James JoyceThis is a great idea for a challenge, and I like the long amount of time allotted.
My fourth book:
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Rebecca WestRebecca West, the journalist, travel writer, and novelist was part Irish and she was born in Kerry. As is probably obvious from the cover art, A Train of Powder is a collection of six articles she wrote while covering various criminal trials. They read more like short stories than like magazine articles because the author really develops the characters, their background, the circumstances of the crimes, and also her own thoughts on the situations.
Synopsis: Three of the articles make up a series called Greenhouse with Cyclamens, where she relates her thoughts during the closing sessions of the Nuremberg Trials and the rebuilding of Germany, including her observations of the personalities of top Nazi leaders like Goering and Hess as they sat in the dock, differences between German and American/British law, growing tensions between the Soviet Union and the other three Allies who shared control of Germany, leading up to the Soviets’ attempt to isolate Berlin from the West and the resulting Berlin Airlift, and the nascent West German government’s insistence on a free market economy despite pressure from the occupying Allies to adopt a more statist model.
Opera in Greenville is about a lynching in Greenville, South Carolina in 1947. A mob of about 30 people, mostly cabdrivers, convinced the prison warden to hand over a young black man named Willie Earle, in jail on suspicion of having killed the disabled white cabdriver who was driving him home. After some days of no results from the local police, the FBI was called in to find the perpetrators. West does a good job of sketching out what life was like in 1940’s Greenville and situating the crime in a society undergoing a transition in its attitudes towards race relations and vigilante justice.
Mr. Setty and Mr. Hume is about a 1949 London murder case. A man who enjoys hunting on weekends goes out in his boat to the marshlands at the mouth of the Thames hoping to bag some duck. Instead, he comes across a bag full of a more grisly type of meat. The remains turn out to be those of Mr. Setty, a shady businessman and member of a well-to-do immigrant family. Mr. Hume is the ex-R.A.F. pilot with a checkered past charged with the murder and disposal of the body.
A Better Mousetrap is the story of an espionage case involving a young British radio telegraph operator employed at the Diplomatic Wireless Service suspected of passing information to a high official in the Soviet embassy.
Review for:
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Timothy EganI just finished this outstanding book with history on three continents; the Great Famine in Ireland, Tasmania, the US Civil War, the settling of the west and more.
Thomas Francis Meagher was a spokesman for liberty in both Ireland and the fledgling United States. His speeches were so respected in Ireland, that they were reproduced as leaflets during the Irish Rebellion in the 1920s. He has been immortalized in statuary in both Waterford, Ireland, where he was a revolutionary, and Helena, Montana where he was Acting Territorial Governor. In between those two places he served time at a Tasmanian prison camp, escaped to New York, and was a leader in the Irish Brigade where he ultimately became their general. He was a Lincoln supporter, believed in the abolition of slavery, wanted school and church separated. He wanted Montana to be "New Ireland". Egan makes this rich history come to life.
I'm going to Ireland next summer and always do a lot of reading before traveling. So, this is perfect timing. Just finished Dubliners and have started Irish Fairy and Folk Tales
I have finished my third book for this challenge: The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World. I had no idea that the family that started Guinness were so religious. They were not Catholic, but they supported Catholic rights. They gave better benefits to their workers than any present day company I have read about it. I enjoyed reading about their charity work, and their passion to help the people around them.
by Stephen Mansfield
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How can you begin to think of an Irish reading list without including Joyce? While I know Ulysses is the quintessential read, I'm not a fan of stream of conscience writing. So, when I came across Dubliners, a book told through a fifteen short stories that depicts life in Ireland; the importance of religion, political upheaval, and human experience within that cultural context it seemed like the way to begin this journey. Reading this I certainly understand the accolades heaped on Joyce. Although the book was less than 200 pages total it took a bit of effort to read. The stories are told so subtly with such nuances sprinkled with poignant sentences that when I realized Joyce was building to a crescendo in the final sentences of each story I felt the need to re-read the preceding pages. The re-read was rewarding. He is most definitely an adept story teller and the stories are moving, beginning and ending with the theme of death and weaving longing for a different life, adventure, a person, or a better existence that resonates with most people's own life experiences. The added peek into life in Ireland was an added bonus.
So, if Ulysses is daunting but you want to add Joyce to your list of read authors this a wonderful choice. I feel at some point I will read the tome, but probably not in the upcoming year.
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Yeats has collected a variety of fairy and folk tales that are prevalent in Irish peasant society. The anthology covers fairies, ghosts, witches, saints, the devil, giants, and royalty. Each section is introduced through commentary by Yeats and is followed by a variety of tales.
I was surprised to find the fairy tales presented in the structure we are used to. There is usually a moral with a nice resolution at the conclusion. Unlike in our tradition in which many of the fairy tales are re-worked from darker Grimm Brother's tales, these appear to be the original form as Irish storyteller gathered nightly to share the stories orally. If discrepancies occurred those in attendance voted to perpetuate the "correct version".
Hello Brett and Regina,thank you for joining this challenge and adding your own reads to the list.
There is just one little detail when using our citation format. The format looks like this:
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Stephen MansfieldSo, its bookcover then author photo and then the link to the author's page.
I just finished The Graves Are Walking by John Kelly. Wow - England has a lot to answer for! Kelly points out how the English government used the famine as a method of social engineering; they wanted Ireland to be more like England and wanted an entire laws of Irish farmers gone. I kept thinking, "Who made the English the one to decide other people's fate?" The book didn't focus as much on the effects of the famine as on the government's actions - but the examples Kelly gave were enough.
One thing that struck me was how important it was for the Irish to have coffins and burials for their dead. Some people put their dead in the walls of their cabins until they could get the money for a coffin. That surprised me - in the middle of starvation, how important it was to have a proper burial.
The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish PeopleJohn Kelly
Hello, Tomi! Thank you for participating in the challenge and for your review.When mentioning books, please use our proper citation format at the bottom of your post:
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John Kelly
Teri wrote: "I've also had Angela's Ashes on my TBR pile for eons."Me too! I just finished, and now it's my first book finished in the challenge.
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Frank McCourt
Granuaile; Grace O'Maley - Ireland's Pirate Queen
by Anne Chambers -2 StarsGranuaile, or Grace O'Maley, was Queen of Umaill, chieftain of the O Maley clan, rebel, seafarer, and fearless leader, who challenged the turbulent politics of 16th century England and Ireland. While Irish legends have immortalized Grace as a courageous woman who overcame boundaries of gender imbalance and bias to fight for the independence of Ireland and protect it against the English crown, to the English, she was considered a brutal and thieving pirate, who controlled the coastlines through intimidation and plunder.
This book should have been amazing. But it was the toughest 200 pages I've ever read and I'm no stranger to long dry works. I can enjoy them as long as the information presented keeps my interest piqued. It may be that any book on Granualie will run into the same issue - there is so little documentation on her. I also think the book would have benefited greatly from maps. Finally, this author LOVES the word extant.
Samanta wrote: "Hello, Tomi! Thank you for participating in the challenge and for your review.When mentioning books, please use our proper citation format at the bottom of your post:
[bookcover:The Graves Are W..."
Will do - I did try, but my iPad was giving me fits!
Mod
Mod
Glad you enjoyed this Brett.
Mod
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Colum McCannIt is very hard for me to rate this book. If I rated in on how much I enjoyed it the rating would be a 2. But, if rating it on the merit it deserves I would have to assign 4. I went with merit.
This is my first read of McCann's work. It is evident he is certainly a talented storyteller and adept writer. The collection of short stories were sweeping, most written from a first person point of view. and he nails the voice each and every time. Even thought most of the stories are set in Ireland a few were not. Two were set in Texas and I was impressed with his knowledge of the geography and his ability to accurately capture the Texas voice. All too often I find authors use a heavy hand in portraying "Texas-Speak" and the hyperbole comes off as a caricature. Not McCann. He nailed it. It was subtle and accurate. It felt authentic and I trusted him with his other stories. He apparently spend a year and a half in Dallas.
So, why do I say it was a 2 for me? The stories are DARK and often disturbing. While the characters were well-drawn, I had sympathy for only one - the Japanese immigrant in "A Basket Full of Wallpaper."
In the end I would say this is an impressive work but not for me.
Mod
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Colum McCannPretty close on the citation - book cover, by, author's photo and then author's link
Nita wrote: "I plan to start with "How the Irish Saved Civilization" and "Dubliners." by Thomas Cahill by [author:J..."That first one is on my to-read list for this challenge as well.
Mod
Bentley wrote: "Great Kressel - glad to have you."Thanks for saying so. I *love* the History Book Club.
Mod
Mod
I just wanted to place a note that I'm going to participate in this challenge starting with Dubliners in February. Can we use a reference book for this challenge. I need to do some family history, 'How To......' . Is that permissible?I'm going to have to really go back through the instructions for this challenge slowly to make sure I understand everything. Had a stroke and am visual learner, so will take me a bit.
Thanks for all the work you do on here. The research you include for each topic is fantastic!
Mod
A How to is permissible if you plan to read it end to end. If not other books would be better which you plan to actually read every page because that is the spirit of the challenge. So honestly unless the book was about Ireland itself or a place in Ireland is written about in the book or there is a famous Irish person discussed or fictional Irish people discussed like in the Dubliners - I am not sure that it does fit. Also you can read books written by Irish authors, etc.
We are here to help along the way and try to go beyond your safety zone and try out authors you may not have done on your own.
I am sorry about your stroke and hope you are on the mend. There is no rush here.
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James Joyce
I've just signed up to participate in this challenge. I have a tentative list of books, though I may tweak the list a bit according to availability and my general whim. I think I will start with The Táin: From the Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge and progress from there. Here is my tentative list. 
by Anonymous (no photo)
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Thomas Cahill
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W.B. Yeats
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Oscar Wilde
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James Joyce
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Frank McCourt
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Brendan O'Carroll
Mod
I am new to the club. I have so many Irish authors on my "tbr list" that the Ireland challenge is perfect for me. I named it "the luck of the Irish". I am starting on the first book of the challenge today (also my first group read) :
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James Joyce
Mod
I want to add that your citation is pitch perfect - great job
Mod
https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/ire...
Source: Rick Steves
Mod
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Neil HegartyGoing into the this read I knew very little of Ireland's history outside of it's context within the Tudor dynasty of Great Britain. I've never traveled anywhere with such little knowledge of a location's history. So, since we are going this summer I have a list of books to enhance my knowledge a bit. This was the perfect book with which to start this journey, covering the time from 5th century AD to present day Ireland in 342 pages in an engaging and readable writing style. Hegarty does an excellent job laying out the timeline for important events and introducing important figures during this time. There is a fantastic timeline at the end of the book. The only point of criticism I have is the author could at times spend too much time on events outside of the country.
On a personal note, I was surprised by how wrong some of my assumptions about aspects of the country's history.
I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in an introduction to Ireland's history.
Mod
I recently signed up to participate in this challenge, and have chosen to start with The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville, which is a Mystery/Thriller. I have on order from Amazon Bloody Sunday: Massacre in Northern Ireland: The Eyewitness Accounts by John Scally, which I'm really excited to get to. I've studied the citations and hope I've done them correctly. If not, I'm sure you will help me :)
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Stuart Neville
by John Scally (no photo)
I have finished my fourth book for this challenge, Dubliners by James Joyce. I'm going to keep my thoughts on the book to myself for now until everyone at the buddy read has finished. But I did give it 3.5 stars.
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James Joyce
Mod
Completed my 4th Ireland Challenge book earlier this week. The 3rd Frank McCourt book describing his 30 years teaching that led him to writing his memoirs. Great teacher and storyteller.
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Frank McCourt
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Helga wrote: "Completed my 4th Ireland Challenge book earlier this week. The 3rd Frank McCourt book describing his 30 years teaching that led him to writing his memoirs. Great teacher and storyteller.
[bookco..."
I, too, am on a McCourt binge.
Kressel wrote: "Helga wrote: "Completed my 4th Ireland Challenge book earlier this week. The 3rd Frank McCourt book describing his 30 years teaching that led him to writing his memoirs. Great teacher and storytel..."
They are worth reading. I read some before the Ireland challenge though. But glad to finish them now.
Helga wrote: "Kressel wrote: "Helga wrote: "Completed my 4th Ireland Challenge book earlier this week. The 3rd Frank McCourt book describing his 30 years teaching that led him to writing his memoirs. Great teac..."
I've only counted Angela's Ashes as part of my Ireland challenge. The others really take place in the States.
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Frank McCourt
I just joined the group and am still learning the ropes but I love Ireland so this challenge looked fun. I plan on reading, 
by Thomas Gallagher (no photo of author)
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James Joyce
by Carmel McCaffrey (no photo of author) I hope these meet the criteria and I am looking forward to the challenge.
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An episodic history of Ireland, beginning with a brief prologue about pre-Christian Ireland, then covering the coming of Christianity through to the 21st century (in an Afterword). The book was written to go with a BBC TV series (not seen) and, I think, suffers for this, although it is an easy read.
The book provides a good insight into (what the author thought were) pivotal episodes from Ireland's history, with some matters covered very well for an overall history, such as the Norman settlement and the Tudor/Stuart/Presbyterian settlements in the sixteenth/seventeenth centuries. From these, I understand the long term religious issues in the country far better now.
Moving to the late nineteenth and twentieth century there was useful explanations (to me) of the personalities and significance of Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Collins and de Valera, the policies of Unionism and Nationalism, the Free State’s brief civil war, the impact of the Irish “diaspora” upon Irish politics and culture, the influence of the Catholic Church from the 1920’s onwards and neutrality during the second world war.
I wanted more about this, which is not possible in an overarching history (so I need to find a book that does this! - suggestions welcome).
Perhaps inevitably, there is much about the relationship with England/Britain, as well as with other countries, especially Scotland and France. I thought that there was too little about the indigenous Irish themselves and more about “immigrants”, especially for early periods.
However, for a short history the book provides a good framework within which to read further and has helped provide context for previous novels set in Ireland that I have read.