Isn’t Peace discredited from the Damned United?
I doubt it.
I’m listening to the Lord of the rings read by Andy Serkis. It’ll be a long term project.
I’m listening to this now and really enjoying it. I re-listened to A Spinning Heart first which is as you say essential. Heart be at Peace is a fine book in its own right. The ‘Rory’ chapter in particular is a beautiful piece of writing. Ryan’s books work really well on audio. Himself the wife and their friends share the reading. The Limerick/ Tipp accents add hugely to it.
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A grand book but not his best.
Any recs on Dickens? Just finished A Tale of Two Cities, and now would like something shorter and not as well known. Online lists of his best/worst are all contradictory.
They were the best of lists, they were the worst of lists
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We did Hard Times in school. It was terrible
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Seems to be generally considered to be shit.
There aren’t many shorter. A Christmas Carol? What did you think of it? I read it last year and thought it was grand. Female characters not very believable.
I’ve read Great Expectation and Pickwick Papers and couldn’t really recommend unless you’re a very fast reader.
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I really enjoyed it, but I love historical fiction regardless. The French Revolution had some really brutal female characters, so the likes of Defarge and Vengeance worked well for me. I found the London sections somewhat uninteresting in comparison.
I decided to get Barnaby Rudge and Great Expectations, then I’ll probably move on to a different classic writer.
If you like historical fiction, I presume you’ve read Hilary Mantel.
The Shardlake series is a grand read too.
We did Great Expectations for Junior Cert and it was a bit of a drag. Probably a bit much for that age.
The rest is history lads reckon Dickens exaggerated how bad conditions were in the Bastille. The daughter character being a complete sap was the one that annoyed me in the Tale of two cities. The bitter French Ladies were probably accurate alright.
I read Wolf Hall a good few years ago but didn’t really enjoy it. Started listening to it on Audible in recent weeks and loving it. The narrator really captures the dialogue/train of thought structure very well
I posted this before but I struggled through three quarters of Wolf Hall before I gave up on it and fucked it away. I was pressing on for ages because with all the acclaim and awards it must objectively be good, but I couldn’t take to it. Found reading about the politics of the British class system vomitous, probably didn’t help.
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I gave up on Wolf Hall too. I just couldn’t get into it at all.
Give the audiobook a whirl. I had a similar experience of wondering what was the fuss
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Does anyone read Denis Lehane?
Have been working through a number of his over the past while.
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Lehane is v good. Mystic River was an exceptional book and film.
What would you recommend for Mantel? I’ve only read Wolf Hall, years ago.
Yeah the daughter is a nothing character, and one of the main reasons why the London chapters are pretty uninteresting.
Bastille only had 8 or so prisoners when it was stormed, the reputation far far outweighed the reality. Don’t think it matters in the context of the book really, it’s historical fiction after all.
Yes, that is where I started.
Half way through the coughlin series now.
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