Inishowen, by Joseph O'Connor (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)It seems that Joseph O'Connor can turn his writing hand to just about anything: literary fiction, travel books, journalism, that…Sat Jul 14 2001 - 01:00
What a sassy satireThe Mushy Memoir seems to have become something of a literary institutionSat Jun 23 2001 - 01:00
Out of Ireland, by Christopher Koch (Vintage, £7.99 in UK)'Poetic, subtle, suspenseful, grave" - Out of Ireland arrives on Irish soil garlanded with antipodean praiseSat Jun 16 2001 - 01:00
Miss Garnet's Angel, by Salley Vickers (HarperCollins, £6.99 in UK)This tale of an elderly Englishwoman who goes to Venice, starts drinking brandy and opens up like a flower turned up in lots …Sat Jun 09 2001 - 01:00
Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby? by Elyse Gasco (Picador, £6.99 in UK)Suffering and sarcasm abound as the extraordinarily-named, Montreal-born Elyse Gasco examines the theme of adoption and motherhood…Sat Jun 09 2001 - 01:00
The Little Hammer by John Kelly (Vintage, £5.99 in UK)The Irish comic novel has become a bit like the fairies: something everybody sort of believes in, but nobody has - at least, …Sat Jun 02 2001 - 01:00
Lost, by Lucy Wadham (Faber & Faber, £6.99 in UK)When a small boy goes missing on a Mediterranean island, his distraught mother is not reassured by the appearance of the officer…Sat May 26 2001 - 01:00
Black, bleak, brutal, brilliant, but . . .First, the good news. James Ellroy - self-styled Demon Dog of American crime fiction, reformed junkie, and author of a fistful…Sat May 19 2001 - 01:00
A jewel of the North (Part 1)The Journey Home. By Olaf Olafsson. Faber & Faber. 296pp, £9.99 in UKSat May 12 2001 - 01:00
Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy (Orion, £6.99 in UK)Caterers from heaven, functions from Hell: the latest slice of Irish life, Binchy-style, comes - as usual - with the fictional…Sat May 12 2001 - 01:00
Suddenly, it's seriously salsaEven by the extraordinary standards of Cuban music, Vocal Sampling are a pretty extraordinary bunch of musiciansThu May 10 2001 - 01:00
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tapes; each part 10 hrs approx. and £24.99 in UK; also available on CD)Harry who? If you're one of the few remaining Muggles on the planet who doesn't know what all the fuss is about, these enchanting…Sat May 05 2001 - 01:00
Going to the Wars by Max Hastings (Pan, £7.99 in UK)War reporter, BBC correspondent, editor of the Daily Telegraph, Max Hastings is something of a British institution - and this…Sat Apr 28 2001 - 01:00
A humming Sanskrit saga`Sometimes I see it written down, and it seems so strange: Benjamin Dwyer, composer," says Benjamin Dwyer, giving the froth on…Tue Apr 24 2001 - 01:00
9.99 in UK)Oh, no: another collection in which a travel writer, who's been-there-and-done-that, dusts off his old copybooks and recycles…Sat Apr 21 2001 - 01:00
Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and The Story of Birthday Letters, by Erica Wagner (Faber & Faber, £8.99 in UK)When Ted Hughes's collection Birthday Letters was published in 1998 it caused a sensation, and no wonderSat Apr 21 2001 - 01:00
A copper like a diamondWhat makes a good crime writer? Well, creating an interesting copper certainly helpsSat Apr 21 2001 - 01:00
Seeing how it goes on the night`OK," says Ronan Guilfoyle. We're talking about improvisation: the "imp" word. He says it can be taughtFri Apr 06 2001 - 01:00
A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines (Serpent's Tail, £6.99 in UK)Five weeks at the top of the US paperback fiction charts, winner of the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction, "An Oprah…Sat Mar 10 2001 - 00:00
Marrying the Mistress, by Joanna Trollope (Black Swan, £6.99 in UK)When 62-year-old judge Guy Stockdale announces his intention of leaving his wife of 40 years to marry his 31-year-old mistress…Sat Feb 17 2001 - 00:00
Abroad in a murky world`How was I supposed to know?" Ernest said. "I've never been outside Dublin beforeSat Feb 10 2001 - 00:00
Steane and heardJohn Steane is a man for whom singing matters. A reviewer of fearsome reputation - the initials J.B.SSat Feb 03 2001 - 00:00
Children of the Night, by Tony Thorne (Indigo, £7.99 in UK)Title sound familiar? Yes, it's a quotation from Bram Stoker - but it comes as a surprise to most people to discover that when…Sat Jan 27 2001 - 00:00
Chang & Eng, by Darin Strauss (Allison & Busby, £9.99 in UK)Imagine being a Siamese twin, intimately bound to another human being for every minute of your waking life: worse, imagine if…Sat Jan 27 2001 - 00:00
The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood, read by Lorelei King (HarperCollins, 4 tapes, 6 hrs, £12.99 in UK)From its stunning opening line, "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge", this Booker Prize-winning…Sat Jan 20 2001 - 00:00
Blood Rain, by Michael Dibdin, read by Michael Kitchen (Chivers Audio, 8 tapes, 8 hrs, £15.95 in UK)Dibdin's Aurelio Zen books often have a surreal spin, none more so than this macabre outing in which the hapless Zen, posted …Sat Jan 20 2001 - 00:00
The Consolations of Philosophy, by Alain de Botton, read by the author (Penguin, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK)Whether Proust actually changed anybody's life is still a moot point, but in this follow-up bout of popular philosophising the…Sat Jan 20 2001 - 00:00
The Constant Gardener , by John le Carre, read by the author (Hodder Headline, 4 tapes, 6 hrs, £14.99 in UK)They said the new world order would destroy him: instead he has patiently dissected it, picking away at its fraying seams like…Sat Jan 20 2001 - 00:00
The Wrong Boy, by Willy Russell, read by the author (HarperCollins, 4 tapes, 6 hrs, £12.99 in UK)Raymond Marks is a normal boy until, due to a lunatic series of misunderstandings, he is branded a pervert and cast out of the…Sat Jan 20 2001 - 00:00
A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth, read by the author (HarperCollins, 4 tapes, 6 hrs, £12.99 in UK)Boys, oh boys; actually this Indian epic is mostly about girls, and whoever abridged it on to a mere six hours of tape deserves…Sat Jan 20 2001 - 00:00
Endurance, by Alfred Lansing, read by Tim PigottSmith (Orion, 4 tapes, 6 hrs, £12.99 in UK)Even if you can't stand exploration literature, you couldn't fail to be moved by Lansing's image of Ernest Shackleton standing…Sat Jan 20 2001 - 00:00
Meetings with Remarkable Trees, by Thomas Pakenham, read by Bill Paterson (Orion Audio, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK)Trees on tape? Well, we've already had the TV series, and Thomas Pakenham's paean to the beauties of bark and branches further…Sat Jan 20 2001 - 00:00
Maybe it's Messiaen's momentOlivier Messiaen didn't bother to break the rules of musical composition; he simply made up his ownTue Jan 09 2001 - 00:00
Word and Rules: the Ingredients of Language, by Steven Pinker (Phoenix, £7.99 in UK)What, many despairing language students have wondered, is the point of irregular verbs? In this fascinating study, Steven Pinker…Sat Nov 25 2000 - 00:00
From Russia with IsmailovaFriday evening in The Factory on Dublin's Barrow StreetSat Nov 18 2000 - 00:00
Sacred Cows: is Feminism relevant to the new Millennium? by Rosalind Coward (HarperCollins, £6.99 in UK)Feminism, says Rosalind Coward in her introduction to this book, has been an astoundingly successful social movement - so successful…Sat Nov 18 2000 - 00:00
Adrian Mole: the Cappuccino Years, by Sue Townsend (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)A grown-up Mole would once have been unthinkable; but here he is, thirty-something, still unfulfilled in the life partner department…Sat Nov 04 2000 - 00:00
Inside the Seraglio: Private Lives of the Sultans in Istanbul, by John Freely (Penguin, £8.99 in UK)The harem of the Ottoman sultans has been a subject of perennial fascination to Western readers, symbolising the ultimate in …Sat Oct 21 2000 - 01:00
Echoes from the puebloWe all know what flamenco is, don't we? A female dancer, all swirling skirt and coy glancesSat Oct 14 2000 - 01:00
Vaclav Havel: a political tragedy in six acts, by John Keane (Bloomsbury, £12.99 in UK)Plain man's President, is how the late president of the Czech Republic is generally portrayed; John Keane presents a rather more…Sat Oct 14 2000 - 01:00
Wasabi waltzRoll over Bridget Jones: there's a new kid on the comedy/romance fiction block. OK, so Marian Keyes isn't newSat Oct 14 2000 - 01:00
Corpsing, by Toby Litt (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)When Conrad's ex-girlfriend Lily, a stunning, slightly-famous actress, is gunned down before his eyes as they're just about to…Sat Oct 14 2000 - 01:00
Midnight All Day, by Hanif Kureishi (Faber & Faber, £6.99 in UK)The tone of these stories trembles, like a barometer in a thunderstorm, between comedy and tragedy; an appropriate position, …Sat Oct 07 2000 - 01:00
A Star Called Henry, by Roddy Doyle (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)In the first volume of what he promises will be a trilogy called The Last Roundup, Roddy Doyle unpicks the stitches of the tatty…Sat Sept 23 2000 - 01:00
Sonata in the key of `P'Pianos are the forgotten instruments of the 21st centurySat Sept 23 2000 - 01:00
