Telling it like it was: As the fall-out from Carole Coleman's interview with George Bush on RTÉ television rumbled on through the week, one interesting angle was how unused the US administration was to robust probing by the media.
Since the war in Iraq started, one major exception to this has been the New York Review of Books (NYRB). Now it is to publish a book on the subject - Now They Tell Us, by Michael Massing, contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. It's based on his recent articles in the NYRB on the press and the war, including another trenchant one in the June 24th edition.
Here, although Massing gives credit to the New York Times for the mea culpa it issued in May, acknowledging that the paper's pre-war coverage was not as rigorous as it should have been, he feels the Times doesn't compare favourably with its competitor, the Washington Post, which, he says, has stood out among US news organisations for its sharp and insightful reporting. "When it comes to Iraq, the rivalry between the Times and the Post has become A Tale of Two Papers, the one late and lethargic, the other astute and aggressive."
Massing says that European media such as the BBC, the Guardian, the Financial Times, and Le Monde have Arabic speaking correspondents with close knowledge of the Middle East, while Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France Presse have many correspondents stationed in places where US organisations do not. "It's remarkable how little reporting from these organisations makes its way into American news accounts." He sums up by saying, "The question for American journalists is whether they really want to know what the Iraqis themselves, in all their complexity, are thinking and feeling." This will be a book to watch out for.
Hunger for Unger's book
The bulge of the Bush books continues stealthily and now, at last, Craig Unger's controversial House of Bush, House of Saud has found a UK publisher. The book has been a huge success for Scribner's in the US, encouraged by the interview with the author in Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11, but has not seen the light of day on this side of the Atlantic since the Random House UK group decided not to proceed for legal reasons. The book looks at claims that the Bush administration's links with the oil industry may have affected the rise in Islamic terrorism. Martin Rynja, of the new publisher, the independent Gibson Square, said this week that they felt passionately that the book's incisive angle on Bush politics and on terrorism demanded a UK release. The book comes out later this month.
Picturing 'Ulysses'
Tritonville Road, the Queen's theatre, the Daniel O'Connell monument, the Hotel Metropole, Nelson's Pillar, Crossgun's Bridge and Parnell's grave are among the Dublin landmarks on the funeral procession of Paddy Dignam in Ulysses that are depicted in the latest book from artist Séan Lennon. The Removal of Paddy Dignam, illustrated by Lennon, with a foreword by David Norris, is loosely based on Episode 6 of Joyce's masterpiece. It's published by Fingal County Council. It has often been said that Joyce did not excel in architectural description or geographical sense, but a feel for the city still pervades the book and Lennon manages more than 80 pages of drawings of landmarks from Ulysses in his latest volume. See www.fingalcoco.ie
Kavanagh's turn
Now that Bloomsday 2004 has come and gone, the focus shifts to the Patrick Kavanagh centenary commemorations. Chief among these will be the launch of Dancing with Kitty Stobling, an anthology of the award winners of the annual Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award over the years. It will be published by Lilliput in October. Meanwhile, the closing date for this year's award is August 20th; the winner will be announced at the launch of the anthology. Competition rules and entry forms are available from the Patrick Kavanagh Centre, Inniskeen, Co Monaghan or e-mail info@pke@eircom.net
Actor turns novelist
It's not every day an actor turns novelist but John Lynch - star of the movie Cal among others - is, temporarily anyway, swapping the screen for the book circuit. Literary agent Marianne Gunn O'Connor has just sold his début novel, The Torn Water, to British publishers Fourth Estate. It's set in Lynch's native Northern Ireland and is the story of a young boy, James Lavery, growing up against a family background of his father's IRA involvement and untimely death and his young mother's drinking. "Gradually, through the agonies of adolescence, James begins to understand the real cost of his father's weak and deluded heroism," says Gunn O'Connor, describing the novel as lyrical and poetic.