More Book Lists

It's the time of year when everyone interested in books is making 'best of the year' book lists. I posted one on Saturday from The Irish Times which was a particularly good list and much shared around on Facebook http://dublinduchess.blogspot.ie/2012/12/irish-times-top-titles-of-2012.html

This one is from Matt Cooper's Last Word on Today FM yesterday where Declan Burke and Nadine O'Regan joined him to discuss the best fiction, crime fiction, short stories and gift/picture books of 2012. Several are them were duplicates of those nominated by the Irish Times which I have not repeated here.
The full list can be seen here:
http://www.todayfm.com/Shows/Weekdays/Matt-Cooper/Matt-Cooper-Blog/12-12-11/Last_Word_Books_of_2012_-_Fiction.aspx?ReturnURL=%2fShows%2fWeekdays%2fMatt-Cooper%2fMatt-Cooper-Blog.aspx

     

  

   

   

   

     

I'm always interested in 'disappointment' lists as well, because that's exactly how I often feel when reading prize winners or much hyped books when the less well known authors and independent presses are bringing out great work. I too was disappointed when The Song of Achilles won the Orange prize, when Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, Cynthia Ozick's Foreign Bodies and Georgina Harding's Painter of Silence were such great books and so much better.

Here is their list;

DISAPPOINTMENTS OF THE YEAR:

NW by Zadie Smith: Nadine: “Let down from a very talented writer.” Focuses on 30 characters growing up on estate in London. Smith’s talent shines through in pieces but not enough.#

Canada by Richard Ford: Declan’s described it as a ‘circus tent of a novel’. Two big events at either end and not a lot in between…

The Chemistry of Tears. By Peter Carey: Nadine: “Outrageously boring.” Skips between modern-day London and Germany in the 19^th Century.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: One of the best reviewed crime novels of the year. Went the way of many good TV series – started well, became implausible mid-way through and then became completely crazy.

The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller: Poor telling of Achilles and his bid for immortality.

Caravaggio Conspiracy by Walter Ellis

I've just started reading this book and wish I hadn't. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with it, in fact I love it, and there's the problem. You see I'm thinking this would have made a perfect 'reading in the Christmas holidays' book, when you can curl up in the chair uninterrupted and read for several hours at a stretch. But I've started it now- and can't put it down!


Set in the early 1600s, when Caravaggio was painting and in the near future on the death of a Pope, the characters are skillfully drawn and you are swept into the story from the start. In Rome, the Pope has died and the primates are gathered together to elect a new one. But the Muslim faith is encroaching on Europe and there is some dissent about what exactly the role of the church is in modern day. Meanwhile, Caravaggio (real name Michelangelo Merisi) is painting a new commission and discussing the reception of his other works with his reclining naked model, a twenty-year-old courtesan. The book has all the required ingredients of a page-turner; sex, conspiracy theories, mysterious deaths, religious plots and the too-ing and fro-ing between times from the 15th century to the unspecified future. The unassuming hero is Declan O'Malley, an Irish Jesuit and his nephew Liam Dempsey who follow the clues to unravel a plot. Of course, the fact that the story draws on Caravaggio's lost masterpiece The Betrayal of Christ, which hangs in The National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin and which any regular visitor will be familiar with, helps to stoke our interest but this aside it is a great read and one that will be keeping me up late for the next couple of days.

N.B. Walter Ellis the author has just emailed me commenting on the difficult availability of this book, and so if you like the sound of it you might try contacting the publishers directly. 

The Caravaggio Conspiracy is published by The Lilliput Press.
www.lilliputpress.ie

The Angels' Share by Barbara Smith

The title of this collection and of one of the poems Angels' Share, refers to the quantity of alcohol lost to evaporation during distilling, as I'm sure you all know! The collection is made up of over fifty poems; eighteen, followed by the 'Mallory Sonnets' and then a further eighteen poems.

'Shackleton's Portable Homeland' sets out an interest of Barbara Smith's in explorers. Inspired by a report in The Irish Times in February 2010 it describes the living conditions of the winter hut in Antarctica- using wooden cases for furniture; "...re-using bottled-fruit cases/ or those of herring fillets, to make bunk spaces,/ pantry, bakery and a dark room...". I was struck by the plain language and real-ness of the description of a climb in 'A Rare Occurence at Glenbeigh' which just connects you to the poetry; "backgrounding our own huffing up the hill/ and a shower dampens off the moonshine,/ speckling our rain-cheaters and our spectacles."

The sad and affecting poem 'From the Land of the Living' of a teenage burial with Dublin jersey and Liverpool scarf in the coffin, plus a mobile phone, to which his brother now ten "still texts you/ the scores/ on a Saturday." At the other end of the emotional scale, they don't come much funnier than 'Pair Bond', dedicated to Dolly Parton and I'd love to hear Barbara Smith reading this one. The vast body of the poem is made up of euphemisms for breasts, "my God's  milk bottles, my Picasso cubes,/ my chesticles, my cha-chas, my coconuts,/ my dairy pillows, my devil's dumplings,", as a barmaid prepares a pint and is addressed to her chest. What fun Barbara must have had writing this, but it is one with a feminist reading too. I particularly like 'Five Gifts From a Summer Lover' with its descriptions that set off your senses; "the brackish stench of cockleshells" and "the last vinegared crispy bits/ in a grease-translucent chip bag'. Your mouth waters as you read the last line, almost smelling the seaside chips.

The 'Mallory Sonnets' has an introduction describing Mallory the Everest climber's disappearance on the mountain in 1924, after his fourth attempt, and the finding of the body along with some personal effects in 1999 by a Research Expedition. The poems are set out as 'Prologue: Summiting', 'First Expedition: Reconnaissance, 1921' (five poems), 'Second Expedition: Summit Bid, 1922' (two poems),  'Last expedition, 1924' (twelve poems) and finally 'Epilogue: Discovery 1999'. This is obviously a story that fascinated Barbara Smith and her version of the events in a sonnet series brings together the mystery and wonder, her interpretations and the rhetorical questions. The poems entitled with the effects found with the body bring forth descriptions and questions; 'Matches'- "kept deep and dry in a leather pouch", 'Glove'- "Inside your jacket I was furled...". It is an emotive set of poems, drawing the reader into the impossible challenges that these men took on. The 'Epilogue: Discovery  1999' describes the body found freeze dried seventy-five years later; "ragged layers of old natural fibres,/ a shirt scrap, at the nape, a tag for laundry,/ an embroidered name; George Leigh Mallory."

In the second set of poems, 'Hexic' is a poem that needs to be seen on the page. Spoken by the voice of the queen bee, the poem is laid out in hexagons  as a honeycomb, the life-cycle of the hive opened and closed in the poem with the same four lines:

                                                                     empty now
                                                                   once I queened
                                                               this whole byke alive
                                                              constructed some cells

The closing poem is priceless and laugh-out-loud. 'Spectacular Effect' describes that situation every woman knows in the changing room checking out the rear view of jeans between two mirrors and to "see your eyes horrified/ by an infinity/ of huge arses".

Barbara Smith writes with humour and with compassion, about grief and about joy in this collection. For the 'Mallory Sonnets' alone the collection is worth reading but it has lots more to offer besides.
Barbara Smith has read at literary festivals and the Electric Picnic as well as with the Poetry Divas and the Prufrocks. This is her second collection. She has a blog www.intendednot2b.blogspot.com
Published by Doghouse Books.
www.doghousebooks.ie

Tromluí Phinnochio/ Pinocchio - Nightmare at Smock Alley.

I'm really looking forward to going to Smock Alley's Panto/Play this Christmas. Opening this Wednesday 13th December it promises to be something quite different from the 'He's behind you!' pantos.




Performed by Moonfish Theatre Company, it was on as part of the ABSOLUT Fringe Festival in Dublin earlier this year. It's bilingual and I haven't a word of Irish except 'ispini' so I've fingers crossed I won't be confused (it's not difficult I must admit). But it's a play for kids so how difficult can it be?
Billed as an 'alternative Christmas experience' the Theatre website says that it 'shines a dark light on the famous story, centring around a teenage boy who feels trapped between childhood and adulthood, living in a world alongside talking animals, fairies and ghosts'. 
  

There are two matinees; 12.30pm and 2.30pm then an evening show at 7pm.
Compared to the expensive pantos on in Dublin the tickets are a great price; €15, €12 concessions and €40 family.
www.smockalley.com/theatre/

Portobello Notebook by Adrian Kenny

Portobello Notebook is 'just what it says on the tin'- a notebook collection of reminiscences, experiences and stories connected in some way with Portobello in Dublin 8, that little spot of Dublin that stretches from the South Circular Road to the Grand Canal, bordered west and east by South Richmond Street to Upper Clanbrassil Street. Now that's sorted we can move on to the book! Adrian Kenny the author has been an English teacher, journalist and broadcaster and the book collects his writings from over thirty years. Some of his past jobs are drawn into the tales, in particular his role as a teacher.
This book was a little gem to discover, to dip into and enjoy a story at a time or to wolf down in one sitting as I did. Some are sad, some are revealing but all are written with a quiet precise voice where no word is wasted; each is considered and carefully put together to tell the story in its best way. In this way it was a pleasure to read and I was sorry when I reached the end.

'Settling In', a short reflection on moving into the area, ends tragically with a drowning. 'Harry' refers to the experience of writing and 'Going Back' returns the speaker to a childhood memory when he meets a man on the train. There are tales of past loves and of disappointment in love and in 'Saturday Evening Mass' there is final acceptance of thing that used to annoy about a parent who is nearing the end of life and a meeting of an old friend, now a homeless drifter. 'The Cricket Match', the longest piece in the collection, is about a young man finding himself as he detaches himself from the family home and also an experience that left him ill.


Kenny's previous work includes Before the Wax Hardened (1991), Istanbul Diary (1994) and The Family Business (1998)  and this book left me keen to explore more of his writing.

Published by The Lilliput Press
wwwlilliputpress.ie

Rus in Urbe by James Lawless

James Lawless is the author of three novels and a study of modern poetry, as well as being the recipient of several awards. From Dublin and living in Co. Kildare and West Cork this is his first poetry collection.
The title Rus in Urbe is Latin and translates as 'country in the city' (rustic in urban) and is used to describe city parks such as New York's Central Park. Lawless uses this phrase to divide his collection into two parts 'Rus' and 'In Urbe', and these forty plus poems maybe reflect his own life in Dublin/ the city and in the more rural West Cork and Co. Kildare.
 
In Part One: Rus, the country section, the poems are about nature and its surroundings; rocks, foliage, walking observations and weather signs. 'Carrying Forward' is a lovely poem, about recognition of our parents' physical traits in ourselves. It opens in a visually quite beautiful way, "The hairs of my fingers/ are caught by the sun/ like some spidery creatures". Observations in the garden are captured in 'Changing Forms', in particular a butterfly; "it pirouetted and tantalised,/ wings fluttering like eyelashes/ on a regal mistress". The imagery is very attractive and almost seductive.

The great title of 'The Bachelor Who Drank Poitín' is a sad poem of a life in solitude and tells of a discovery after "they beat back the briars", to find a corpse and the bottles, "They pushed in the door,/ inhaled the putrefied air;/ they called again". A visual feast of memory is described in 'Old Trains', as the speaker hears the train and recalls, "my aunt, her bag laden with/ Crunchies, comics and stories/ to intoxicate myth-starved minds;". But the modern train passing is a disappointment without the noise of the door banging or the steam, "just a flutter of breeze".

Part Two: In Urbe opens with 'Ascending a Liberties Staircase in 1952'. The scene is described in its sparseness; the black bannister, the bin chute and the concrete. A mother struggles up with a child and a baby in a pram, "I helped my mother tilt and lift;/ I could hear her heavy breathing,/ each slow tortuous step its own individual,". Winner of a poetry competition, 'The Miracle of the Rain' is an emotive journey of two on the Santiago Pilgrim's Route- one a bare-footed believer and her companion a booted sceptic; "It's a matter of faith, she says,/ You must believe things to be true/ or the world is just a place of pain." Her pain is a hidden one, only reveling itself on their arrival as she kneels in the Cathedral, "and copious tears flow out of her eyes". The speaker realises, "I see the skeleton of her hand./ Pray to Santiago, she says,/ that he may cure me." The poem is affecting and one I re-read in order to again experience its full power. 

'Parisien Vignettes' is just that, short scenes or impressions of Paris. The liking of a fur-coated woman walking her poodle to a Degas painting is very effective and "in a distant café: a half heard love song". But this is not a poem romanticising Paris. In Pigalle, the red-light district, "...a drugged girl,/ wavering in the middle of the street,/ remonstrates with captive motorists" and in the smart vestibule of a hotel in Porte D'Orleans a groomed dog waits, "the route on the pavement/ marked by his shit."



James Lawless has put together a very good collection of poetry here, encompassing many emotions and environments. Some are short and snappy but still deserve as much consideration and contemplation for their message as the longer poems. The division of two parts puts the reader into a particular mindset to receive the rural poem or the more gritty urban poetry.

Rus in Urbe is published by Doghouse Books.
www.doghousebooks.ie

Thread Softly Baby Wear

I was in Arklow at the weekend and the hotel was holding a Christmas fair. In amongst all the usual Christmassy stuff you'd expect was a stall from a lovely company in Gorey called Thread Softly. Now, I'm not usually into baby wear, but these were beautiful and different. Owned by two sisters, this is what they say about themselves:

"We are two sisters who have decided to put our brains and crafty hands together to create a range of unique products. Bored of the same mundane clothes and toys for children and babies we set out to make something a little bit different. made with thought, love and imagination for the little ones that you love."

  
 

Go on, tell me you're not all going ' aahh'. They're very lovely and I hope the girls are successful.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/threadsoftlyhandmade
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thread-Softly/130282817075604?fref=ts

Rain Spill by Jenni Doherty

I've written about Jenni Doherty before on this blog when she read from Rain Spill at the Dublin Book Festival last month (http://dublinduchess.blogspot.ie/2012/11/come-celebrate-launch-of-rain-spill-by.html). Jenni kindly sent me a copy of Rain Spill so now I can review it in total.
From Greencastle, Co.Donegal and living in Derry, Jenni Doherty has a broad background covering publishing, journalism, book selling and library service. Running a bookshop, Little Acorns Bookstore, this is her first collection of work.

Rain Spill is a lovely collection. Using the weather, in particular water, as metaphors and inspiration, Jenni recognises how we let the weather control how we go about our lives. She feels that it is also part of her language, which she illustrates through the collection with Irish proverbs. Under the titles 'Rain', 'Ocean', 'Mist', 'Fog', 'Frost', 'Storm', 'Snow' and 'Rainbow', this is a generous collection of over seventy pieces of work, 'a spill of thought, imagination, fiction, ideas and realities'.

Many poems and writings reflect on her youthful experiences. In 'Sunday Ribbons', Doherty states with clever word play, "Aye, I was bold then./ Bowled over then./ It was the music, the mood, the company, the world;".

Jenni's work is emotive and passionate. It's not 'arty-farty' but about real people in a real world; drinking, smoking, loving and living. It's about women and it's often full of humour, but at other times it's angry and hard. In a funny prose piece 'My Funny Valentine (Or April Fool)' she extols the value of humour in a man. She doesn't want a celebrity, "Paul [Newman] (too old), Brad (too taken), Jim [Morrison] (too buried)," but one who makes her laugh, "A funny guy gets in your system (where a beautiful one gets in your bathroom and steals your face packs) and he stays put".  This collection is just peppered with great lines like that that either take you aback, make you snigger or in some cases just make your lips curl with a smile at her obvious joy in life.

  
Once you have heard Jenni's husky accent you can't help but hear her voice in your head as you read this collection. The nature of the book, poems, soundbites, prose pieces, means that it doesn't have to be read in one sitting but can be dipped into at leisure for a burst of the very real Jenni Doherty.

Rain Spill is published by Guildhall Press.
www.ghpress.com

The Sear of Wounds by Mark Whelan

Mark Whelan is co-founder of Cuisle, Limerick's International Poetry Festival and this, The Sear of Wounds, is his fourth poetry collection. The collection is set out in four parts; Part One: The Sear of Wounds, numbered I-X, Part Two: Secular Psalms I-IX, Part Three: Subterranean and Part Four: Come September, numbered I-VII. An epigraph from T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets: Burnt Norton I, which contemplates time, sets the train of thought for the collection.

'Prelude', before the main collection, appropriately addresses beginnings; "Begin with beginnings once again/ out of what face    out of what voice/ Begin with breath". Poem I in 'Sear of Wounds' has gentle flowing words that tell us a story of the "unopened box of parable between us". Whelan's writing is affecting and his use of spaces instead of commas cause the reader to break and take a breath between separated words in a very effective way. This effect can be seen well in poem IV; "My mattress is meek    a parting space/ separating what is sacred    silent    sound/ from the world's desire". There is a stillness in his stylised writing which presents as a muted, almost prayer-ful voice. In poem IX , a consideration of love and its loss, we see this again; "When love left you took love with you/ What remained    remained    quietly/ as a-no-longer-waiting-on love".

'Secular Psalms' is a lovely section. The biblical psalms are beautiful in themselves and the concept of a secular psalm, a song separate from religion, is appealing. Psalm V considers time, past and present and in words reminiscent of Yeats' "terrible beauty" states "and there is something frighteningly terrible/ and unerringly beautiful/ in the songs of poets" with in the closing verse, "The day present/ does not pass/ nor does it arrive". So many poems have been written on the contemplation of time and this is both a thoughtful and philosophical one of its kind. I particularly liked the sparseness of Psalms VIII and IX, each with sometimes one word lines and no more than three, but still telling a complete and stylised story.

Part Three: Subterranean, has an interesting structure. Composed of eight poems, with an operatic structure, Arias I-IV are each interspersed with poems named for the time of day; 'Night', 'Noon', 'Evening' and 'Morning'. 'Night opens beautifully; "Listen/ toward her intimate breathing as she sleeps/ as you assent toward all     yesterday once held" with its quiet sensitive wording.

The final section, Part Four: Come September, is a consideration of what might be said and how the speaker will reply. "And if they should say to me" is repeated. The imagined conversation, " - Your poverty was valueless/ nothing but softblack peaches of hope/ Your remnants    remains of words" closes with the beautiful verse;
           "Come September
             I will speak of steeples
             in a summering snow
             and follow into   sleep
             the mystic kiss of seasonal crops"  

Mark Whelan's collection is a stylish one and it is one that demands consideration in its quiet way of addressing the reader.

Published by Doghouse Books
www.doghousebooks.ie

Forensic Songs by Mike McCormack

Forensic Songs is Mike McCormack's second short story collection, as well as having written two novels. His first collection was chosen as New York Times Notable Book of the Year. This new collection of twelve short stories has an enigmatic title and an attractive fly-fishing hook design cover by Graham Thew.
 
The fly-fishing hook design explains itself in the first story, 'The Last Thing We Need'. A sergeant due to retire in two months and his young side-kick, with just two months under his belt discuss a case of a non-written memoir and how to deal with it. The conversation, beautifully captured between the two characters, is one of the old guard passing on his advice to the younger, with deviations at times on the theme of fly-fishing.

In 'The Great Lad',  a returning brother (thought dead the last seven years) brings back past resentments and memories. This returning emigre theme continues into another story 'The Man From God Knows Where' and several stories carry links to the Irish working in England . A strange scenario is played out in 'There is a Game Out There', a prisoner brought to a room at night and asked to test play a computer game and in 'Beyond' a woman appears to lose touch with reality.

McCormack has great observation of character, the things that annoy us about each other and the aspects of human weakness. There is nowhere to hide when these stories are being told, revealing things to the reader that they may uncomfortably identify with and other stories that are just plain obscure. Short stories, as I have mentioned in this blog recently, seem to be having a renaissance and with writing of this standard it's not hard to see why.
Forensic Songs is published by The Lilliput Press
www.lilliputpress.ie
Cover illustration www.grahamthew.com

Asking for Directions by Michael Farry

Michael Farry, retired teacher, poet and historian lives in Trim and is founder member of the Boyne Writers Group and editor of their magazine, Boyne Berries. Several of his poems have won prizes. Called Asking for Directions, this collection  of forty poems has a general theme of place names, travelling, foreign locations and people on journeys.


With many contemplative aspects these poems have lines that stand out for consideration. In 'Asking For Directions', the poem of the collection title, the speaker is in Florence and wishes to lose his look of familiarity with the surroundings; "I crave/ the look of knowing nothing worth asking for". 'When I Returned', a poem dealing with the teaching of the pronunciation of  'Auschwitz' to Irish children, is  affecting, especially when the speaker likens the 's-c-h' section to the word 'school'.
'Shackleton on South Georgia' is a wonderful cacophony of noises using assonance and alliteration; "shells shatter, blue whales moan and die, try-pots/ bubble, factories boom". The words just jump off the page and ring around the readers head. I particularly liked the imagery in 'Fuerteventura, 2008'; "we endured the thrum of convoys droning in/ from the north, across the irrigated coastal colony,/ delivering pale human cargo, tourist foot soldiers."
'Turlock, California' questions the thought pattern in naming the dry Californian town, founded in 1871 by John William Mitchell from Mayo and named for Turlough; 'Or was it homesickness/ for the squelch beneath his heels,/ drizzle on his face...'. Farry writes in 'Western Trilogy' of the generation who grew up watching westerns and the comfortable familiarity of the films. A  three-part poem; (i) High Noon, (ii) The Man Who Shot  Liberty Valance  and (iii) Vera Cruz, the speaker tells how "I could play Will Kane at the drop of a gun,/ I've perfected his expressions/ especially that disenchanted look." These lines were so affecting that I almost stopped reading to ape the look before I moved on.
'I Taught You To Drive' is a poem that hits you hard. On the death from cancer of one he taught to drive, the speaker loses the unthinking instinct, and finds that, "Driving to your funeral/ I found it necessary/ to plot each manoeuvre,". In 'If I Could Lay Down All The Clothes I Ever Wore' Farry uses a clever concept to address the passage of time, "by Longford laughed at the broad lapels,/the flares. The Shannon bridge festooned/ with floral shirts...", and also reveals in the poem the speaker as the third son born but the only one to survive.
Right or wrong, I'm hugely drawn to poems by their titles, and who could not be interested in a poem titled 'My Interest in Polish Poetry has Been Aroused', telling of the speakers journey as he "probed the Polish poetry enclave/ in the chain store bookshop'. The two closing poems contemplate the end. 'My Sycamore' is about the choice of coffin, "But no false handles please./ I abhor such gauds,/ prefer the plain functionality" and 'What time is My Funeral?', affecting in its question " - on the riverbank where I ask,/ Have I the correct change for the fare?/ Did I lock the back door before leaving?".

A thought-provoking collection, with a diverse range of subjects, I found this book of poetry brought forward many different emotions, causing one to stop and think on many occasions. Some clever visions of contemporary society, this is a very pleasing collection.
Published by Doghouse Books.
www.doghousebooks.ie

A Moriarty Reader: Preparing for Early Spring ed.Brendan O'Donoghue

A Moriarty Reader is one of those books that can truly be called a treasure. With a beautiful jacket design by Niall McCormack incorporating the painting Early Spring by Guo Xi (c.1020-1090) it looks extra special before you have even opened the first page.
John Moriarty (d.2007) was a poet, mystic, philosopher and original thinker. The Reader reveals his thoughts through his publications; Dreamtime (1994), the Turtle trilogy (1996-1998), Nostos (2001) and What the Curlew Said (2007).
This is an introduction to his writing for those who have not yet read his work, and also new takes on his thinking for those who are familiar with his writing.

After a brief biography there is a note on the selection by the editor, where he explains that it 'does not pretend to provide the definitive guide to Moriarty...[but] to illumine what Heidegger might call a Holzweg ('forestpath/woodpath) within the dense forest of Moriarty's writing'. Well, keenly down that path we will venture.
A foreword by Michael Kearney, founder of the Irish Hospice Movement describes Moriarty as 'one of Ireland's most important thinkers' and that 'to read Moriarty is to make a shamanic journey...to be initiated into that other way of seeing'. He recalls buying Dreamtime and standing mesmerised by it outside Hodges Figgis. The impact Moriarty has had on him has caused him to redirect thirty years of medicine 'to best act in service of the earth'. The way Moriarty has affected those who read him is quite
amazing.
Brendan O'Donoghue as editor, recognises that despite John Moriarty's significance as a writer in Ireland, he has still remained 'a peripheral figure'. Lauded by the likes of Brian Lynch and Paul Durcan, O'Donoghue questions what entitles him to such praise? He identifies it as 'his ability to challenge...habitual modes of Western thought; his willingness...to act as a cultural shaman...; his innovative philomythical[myth loving] and metanoetic* search for wisdom and truth; and his original interpretation of Christ'. Now if that all doesn't draw you in to want to explore this Reader further I don't know what will!
(*metanoetic can be understood as philosophy that understands the limits of reason and the power of radical evil.)
 John Moriarty
In Dreamtime, Moriarty goes walkabout in the Aboriginal sense into Éire's, Europa's and Ecclesia's Dreamtimes engaging with myths and ideas to re-emerge with a new sense of who we are. In the Turtle trilogy Moriarty tries to 'nurture a new humanity on an Earth newly discovered as Buddha Gaia', goes on a right of passage, breaking free and reinterpreting the origin of the universe and finally explores how nature can be on our side by desisting from subduing and enlisting its help. Nostos is a 'homecoming adventure to who and what he is'. Picking up from here in What the Curlew Said, Moriarty documents his life-story from 1982 to a few months before he died, carrying with it 'profound wonderment'.
Moriarty was and is still a writer who had a profound impact on those who read his work. In this Reader, a new audience will get a chance to experience his insight into the mechanics of our world and his own very unique view of it. I certainly intend to return to this and explore it in greater detail and I imagine it is a book I will return to and bring up in conversation for a very long time.

A Moriarty Reader is published by Lilliput Press.
www.lilliputpress.ie

Bamboo Dreams: An Anthology of Haiku Poetry from Ireland ed. Anatoly Kudryavitsky

Doghouse Books down in Tralee have published  the first ever Irish national anthology of haiku poetry, so if you are a fan, this is the book for you!  The interest in haiku has blossomed recently and an increasing number of Irish writers are appearing in print worldwide. This book contains work by seventy-seven haiku writers.

The anthology has an excellent introduction by Anatoly Kudryavitsky, the editor of Shamrock Haiku Journal, where he discusses the development of haiku in Ireland from an unsuspecting Patrick Kavanagh around 1965-67 and Juanita Casey, a travelling woman in 1968. The first collection by an Irish poet was Michael Hartnett's Inchicore Haiku in 1985. The Internet has been instrumental in creative exchange, namely Shiku Internet Haiku Salon which was popular in the late nineties and World Kigo Database. The first Irish haiku magazine Haiku Spirit ran from 1995-2000 founded by James Norton. In more recent years there was online magazine Lishanu (www.lishanu.com) and Shamrock (www.shamrockhaiku.webs.com) which is the international online magazine of the Irish Haiku Society since 2007. There are two associations of English language haijins (haiku poets) in Ireland; Haiku Ireland (www.haiku-ireland.com) and the Irish Haiku Society (www.irishhaiku.webs.com) who conduct workshops. I include all this information because I found it very interesting, like a secret society nobody knows about!
Kudravitsky acknowledges that there is a 'celtic' haiku style. Many of the haiku in this anthology, as with the traditional Japanese haiku, have nature as a theme. I have pulled out certain verses that I particularly liked, some of them are a complete haiku in its three lines, others are selected verses from a longer haiku.
This verse from Sharon Burrell could only be an image from Dublin; "chilly morning - / geese in formation/ over the Dart line" and this philosophical verse from Juanita Casey; "why rage if the roof/ has holes?/ heaven is roof enough". I particularly liked this complete haiku from Michael Coady; "ravens from the height/ throw shapes above the belfry - / deep-croak  rituals". With that "deep-croak" in the last line you can hear the voice of the crow, and it is explained that throw shapes: dance (Hiberno-Engl.
Patrick Deeley perfectly records an event any cat-owner will recognise; "dead thrush on the doorstep/ the cat's way/ to my heart" while Gabriel Fitzmaurice captures life from death in his three line haiku; "a rotting tree stump/ in the middle of the woods/mushrooms with new life". In Maeve O'Sullivan's verse I can see the colours ; "Basque flower market/ an orange hibiscus/ trumpets its presence" and Thomas Powell captures a everyday joyful sight with new eyes; "communal bath/ in the blocked guttering/ a row of sparrows".
I liked the enigmatic words of Isabelle Prondzynski; "fog in the city - / now I cannot see/ those I do not know" and the hopelessness in the words of Eileen Sheehan; "home village/ nowhere to visit/ but the graveyard".
  editor Anatoly Kudryavitsky
I really enjoyed this anthology. The very refined discipline required to write haiku make their soundbites all the more intense. I hope that this particularly specialised style of poetry writing continues to gather strength in Ireland because from this collection it is obvious that there are a lot of talented haiku writers around.

Published by Doghouse Books.
www.doghousebooks.ie

A Kick Against The Pricks: The Autobiography by David Norris

Senator David Norris, independent member of Seanad Éireann, presidential candidate, Joycean scholar and defender of human rights. This is the David Norris that we know, his public roles, but there is a lot more to the man and what made him and even those who think they know a lot more about him will find information of great interest in this book.
The epigraphs explain the title. From The Bible, Act 26:4, 'Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against pricks', from Euripedes' The Bacchae, 'Being enraged I would kick against the pricks' and Plautus, 'If you strike against the pricks with your fists you hurt your hands more than the pricks.' Followed by the meaning of the word, 'Prick - a kind of sharpened goad used to prod oxen...from ancient times a source of metaphor...' and used by David Norris 'in full consciousness of its double entendre as a metaphor' for his 'lifelong struggle against the establishment.'

The chapter titles are literary and joyful in themselves; 'My Family and Other Animals', 'Borstal Boy' and 'The Only Gay in the Village' being just three examples. The humorous 'Warning to Readers' to consume the material whole as 'unauthorised toxic bundles of selected quotations may appear in the media' (should steer you away from this review!!) gives us an early insight into David Norris's sense of humour, with a warning to 'be especially cautious of sensational headlines'.
Before starting in to this book, I will say that the photographs are fabulous and tell a story all on their own. From the earliest photos of his maternal grandparents in Co.Laois and his uncle Dick, a colonel and chaplain to the Royal family seen with the young Queen Elizabeth and also Queen Mary, through so many life events to a final most majestic portrait of David Norris at his home in North Great Georges Street.
For David Norris, this book, as he states in the prologue, is an apologia in the classical sense, an explanation to be considered by the civilised reader. With a comment on his Christmas post-presidential campaign and the gutter press of Rupert Murdoch, he realised there was always resurrection.

Born to older parents (father forty-nine and mother forty-three) after ten childless years of marriage, his brother John then four years later David. Having lived and worked in the Congo as Chief Engineer for Lever Brothers a return to Dublin was decided on; first his mother and the two small boys alone, in early 1945 during the war as his father still worked abroad. He saw his father just three more times in the next four years for four- or six-week breaks as he died in Africa of a coronary at fifty-six.
With little family for the majority of his life, he says 'I've always loved the idea of a family, and throughout my life have always tried to assemble the elements of it.'
With reminiscences of school there are the agonies of homesickness of an eight-year-old boarder in a male version of St Trinian's with an absent-minded eccentric headmaster and teachers keen with the cane. Traumatised, he often ran away.
His life is one of the fullest I have come across and he seems to have met every dignitary going. The campaigning that he is well known for is covered with interesting stories. With a closing chapter entitled 'Laughter and Love of Friends', amongst his contemplations on belief, mortality and health, he recalls an emergency hospital visit where halfway to the ambulance he returned for an armful of books. Amongst the crowd gathered a lad called, 'Fair play to ya, Norris, ye're the only man in Dublin who'd be at death's door and he'd be going back for his bukes!' Concluding that he has had a marvelous life and that like Edith Piaf he regrets nothing, he offers some obituary notes and tombstone engavings. All are worthy, but I would plump for the quote from your man above.

This is a really interesting autobiography. It is one of Dublin of the 50s, a young boy and man's experience of growing up without a father in genteel poverty developing into one determined to make the world a fairer place. It encompasses so many subjects and his detailed account of the 2011 Presidential election is his opportunity to tell his side of the story. A great book whether you are a fan of David Norris or not, he's just had a really fascinating life.
Published by Transworld Ireland
www.transworldireland.ie

Isn't It Well For Ye? The Book of Irish Mammies by Colm O'Regan

Colm O'Regan is a stand-up comedian, columnist and broadcaster and the concept for this book started out as a Twitter account @irishmammies, which had thousands of followers after just a few months, now 50,000. Published by Transworld Ireland and billed as 'an exploration of the phenomenon of the Irish Mammy', this is going to be a very popular stocking filler this Christmas for all those mammies out there.


 
With a good old rubber water bottle on the cover and comedy in the first page, a cave painting of a hot press and the Ogham script translated as 'A grand bit of drying out', you can quickly see where this book is going. The Irish language is cited as 'ideal for no-nonsense dismissals of messers and wasters' and The Constitution of the House is very funny opening with 'Article I: While you're under this roof...'
There's the 'war on damp', the weather (of course) and the inevitable cough-bottle along with the top five reminiscable diseases, 'Will I ever forget that winter? All three of you had the croup.' The points chatter comes with a Mammy-designed leaving cert exam paper and don't forget the all important messages, 'They're gone very dear in there altogether.'
They're all in here, but I won't quote any more for fear of giving the fun away. It'll be a 'grand bit of fun for them' on Christmas day. Now whether the mammy's will see the humour only you can judge that yourself but you will certainly be having a good ole giggle yourself!

Mammies brain, 'Location of my glasses' at the front, 'WHO DIED' taking up a good part in the middle, 'Airing clothes' and 'General Worrying' at the back.

Published by Transworld Ireland www.transworldireland.ie