The story is told by each of the characters in turn: each perspective is distinctive and fertile ground for ironic musings on Kirsty’s brittle quest for celebrity. Continue reading
Filed under Book review …
William Smith O’Brien, Compulsive Traveller
Davis traces O’Brien’s extensive travels over a 20 year period, both before and after O’Brien’s sojourn in Tasmania as a political prisoner. Continue reading
A Notorious Life
If Dickens had been free of the restraints of respectability, and able to acknowledge honestly and frankly his own mistress, and his fascination with the underclass of prostitutes in London, this is the kind of book he might have written. Continue reading
Piecing together Elusive Fragments
The Introduction of Val Noone’s ‘Hidden Ireland in Victoria’ outlines some reasons for the elusiveness of the Irish language in historical records and launches a beautiful metaphor of beachcombing to express the work’s methodology for recovering whatever remains of the Irish Gaelic heritage. Continue reading
New light on Irish literature and Daniel Corkery
Heather Laird’s splendid book suggests that Corkery is better understood as part of an international anti-colonialist stream… Continue reading
Winged Views of Mortal Endeavour
This poetry collection has three sections where archetypal themes arise: courage versus folly, youth versus experience, or pride and the fall…. Continue reading
A Daughter Remembers
Looking ahead, Mary Elizabeth Calwell’s memoir of her distinguished father Arthur Augustus Calwell (1896-1973) will be a useful guide to what might be called a family view of the many controversies of his political and public life. Continue reading
Can the Tide of History be turned back?
When he set up a series of properties between Melbourne and the Murray, he was more appeasing in his relationships with Aborigines, making an effort to learn the language, Continue reading
Asking for Directions
Asking for Directions is a chronicle of journeys… Continue reading
A City in Decline
Dublin was a deposed and distressed capital, a city in decline. Continue reading
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