Books
Tony Judt
Tony Judt, the great historian of modern Europe, is dead from a terrible neurological disease. The news commands attention out of our usual box. Judt was not afraid to preach a social democratic humanism to fill the vacuum left by the end of ideological conflict. He was that rare thing for an Englishman- a public [...] more »
Listening to Van Morrison
There’s a great piece in today’s Guardian Books section, Greil Marcus on his new book Listening to Van Morrison. Here’s an extract from the article It’s a short book, not a biography or a career survey, but an attempt to follow those moments in Morrison’s music, as he’s made it from his first records with Them, [...] more »
On the public utility of deceit and rejection of Republicanism’s millenarian ambition…
Richard English has a cracking review of the Voices from the Grave in the Irish Times last week… Just here he gets to the crux of why the posthumous blows from an old dead comrade will in eyes of many in wider society simply bounce off the public persona of Gerry Adams, despite the Sinn [...] more »
Two Irish books shortlisted for the Orwell Prize
No Irish bloggers in this year’s Orwell Prize long listing (Chekov made it last year), but two writers make it for their non fiction work: Fintan O’Toole forShip of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger and Ruth Dudley Edwards for her magnum opus on the experience of the relatives of the Omagh [...] more »
The rise of fundamentalists
It’s the atavistic fear of Northern Ireland writ large – the fundies are outbreeding the rest of us. It’s not about race, it’s about religion according to Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century by Eric Kaufmann, reviewed by the son member of the father and son team of [...] more »
“This is just a baby step towards bringing our archives to a wider public”
The Royal Society’s celebration of its 350th anniversary continues with the Guardian noting that more wondrous things have been made available online – stunning 3D facsimiles of maunscripts from their archive. The Guardian mentions Isaac Newton’s early biographer and friend – they met in 1718 – William Stukeley’s Memoirs of Newton’s Life, source of the [...] more »
Colm Toibin lifts the £30,000 Costa Prize…
Colm Toibin’s novel Brooklyn has won the Costa prize... Eileen Battersby reports: Tóibín, who receives £30,000 (€33,491), defeated the 2009 Man Booker winner Hilary Mantel and her popular and populist novel Wolf Hall . He has also emulated his countryman Sebastian Barry, who won last year en route to winning the overall Costa Book of [...] more »
“when our eyes tell us something different”
Mick’s been pestering asking me, and others, for a post on a recommended book for Christmas. But since I’m still an independently minded blogger, and I’ve already made one recommendation recently, I thought I’d do something else. So, instead of a book I’ve read, here’s a book I’ve just put on top of my to-be-read [...] more »
That’s not a “Little Planet”, it’s a dwarf planet..
If you thought the last honk for Pluto was to be heard in the Illinois Senate, you’d be wrong. From the Professor comes news of the perfect Christmas gift for your inner space geek. MSNBC’s Cosmic Log’s Alan Boyle’s The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference. Available at all good [...] more »
“the Wild West of European finance”
In today’s Guardian, Terry Eagleton reviews Fintan O’Toole’s Ship of Fools – “As O’Toole points out, bribery, tax evasion and false evidence under oath have not simply gone unpunished; the very idea of penalising the culprits is viewed by the governing elite as unsporting or even unpatriotic.” This is partly because Ireland, having in O’Toole’s [...] more »
Book Review: “The Bankers” by Shane Ross
The Bankers: How the Banks Brought Ireland to Its Knees is an important book. It is a highly readable account of the defining political and economic story of our time. How a group of elite bankers fueled a credit bubble, fought back against government pressure in the wake of it’s collapse and ensured the survival [...] more »
“like stakeholders in the Pequod..”
Oxford based Clutag Press are taking orders for the fourth volume of Archipelago – a collection of writing of an archipelagic nature. The volume, costing £10.00, including P&P for Britain and Ireland (£15.00 elsewhere), will be launched on 26 November 2009. The Bodleian bodcasts mentioned previously can be found here – new direct link to [...] more »
Gaelic Athletic Association 1884 – 2009: 1 In Ulster…
A few years back I remember talking to a senior DUP politician about the fact that the two populations (despite a considerable amount of Peace Processing that’s what they substantially remain) in Northern Ireland each seem to have quite separate public lives that essentially remain locked to one another… it was that thought which prompted [...] more »
Codex Sinaiticus online
Will Crawley notes that the British Library – in collaboration with St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Leipzig University library, the national library of Russia in St Petersburg, and the Instititute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at Birmingham University – has made available online pages, transcriptions, and translations, of what is believed to be the oldest [...] more »
“Wasn’t the 18th Century blogging’s Golden Age?”
Via the Professor. This does look interesting [If you like that sort of thing - Ed]. Scott Rosenberg’s Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters, available [sometime] at Amazon. There’s also a dedicated website with some sample extracts – such as an intelligent, US-focused, version of the old favourite “Journalists [...] more »
“By yer man James Joyce isn’t it?”
As Mick said, it’s Bloomsday! Which is all the excuse I need to repost this still excellent video. Those of a sensitive disposition are duly warned, again, that James Joyce enjoys the language in all its fecund nuttiness. Enjoy. Oh, and now without subscription, here’s a good digested read from last year’s Irish Times. From [...] more »
“listening to a river in the trees..”
As noted back in May 2006, Seamus Heaney has been working on a modern English account of the work of the 15th-century Scottish makar Robert Henryson [c 1420-1490]. Here’s a link to the Guardian interview at the time. And one of his translations from Henryson – “The Toad and The Mouse”. What was intended as [...] more »
Unionism needs to get in tune with the zeitgeist of today’s European Union
Eamon McCann’s been reading what sounds like a fascinating book by a man who was a player during the early, and most traumatic years of the Northern Irish troubles… Eamon buys the argument that Unionism could to get itself off the tribal hook, and into an attractive, and fashionable space. He quotes Robert Ramsey here: [...] more »
Not the enemy: Israel’s Jews from Arab lands
I’m always a little wary of getting involved in problems in other parts of the world, particularly in areas where people are inclined to draw glib comparisons with home, but there’s a great little review of Rachel Shabi’s book on the Mizrahi Jews of Israel, ie those who settled there from other Arab and Muslim [...] more »
“That never is Sam Beckett’s handwriting. I can read every word.”
The Guardian’s Nicholas Lezard reviews the “treasure trove” that is The Letters of Samuel Beckett : Volume 1, 1929-1940 – the New York Times tells us it’s the first of four volumes. From the Guardian Here is the authentic early Beckettian tang, straight from the source, unmediated by artifice. He may always have been a [...] more »
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Books
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The lost art of reading (or drowning in too much information)…
Here’s a great review of a fascinating book (H/T reader Rory) on how the Internet is destroying our capacity for intelligent, focused and critical thought. It opens thus: …here is the news that Ulin brings in this slim, meandering book: that reading is “an act of contemplation”; that such an act becomes more difficult in [...] read our review »
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A New Vision for the Catholic Church – Book Review
The oft-quoted verse from the book of Proverbs, ‘where there is no vision, the people perish,’ (chapter 29, verse 18) opens a new book by Gerry O’Hanlon, A New Vision for the Catholic Church: A View from Ireland (Columba Press, 2011). That verse could be considered an apt summary of the current state of the [...] read our review »
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Books: Listening to Van Morrison…
Great little review of Listening to Van Morrison by Griel Marcus… It’s a short book, not a biography or a career survey, but an attempt to follow those moments in Morrison’s music, as he’s made it from his first records with Them, from Belfast in 1965 to the present day, when something happens that breaks [...] read our review »
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