An Irishwoman's DiaryI may have degenerated into a person who starts packing about six minutes before heading to the airport for a flight that usually…Tue Aug 14 2001 - 01:00
Welcome to the crazed hell of normalityMirella is a stressed Boston lawyer, husband Howard is an architect. They are busy trying to have everythingSat Aug 11 2001 - 01:00
Books/PapThe Hill Bachelors by William Trevor (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)erbacksTrevor's first collection in four years follows possibly his finest, After Rain (1996), and true to his art, the master does …Sat Aug 11 2001 - 01:00
Calm, reflective stories of lifeMany writers have attempted to write about the essential moments of life in which everything and nothing happens, yet few have…Sat Aug 11 2001 - 01:00
I'll go onConor Lovett remembers discovering Samuel Beckett as part of a seminal reading adventure when he was 17Thu Aug 09 2001 - 01:00
A shrewd chronicle of sickly sexualityJust when it seemed Philip Roth had finally acquired some semblance of seer-like authorial detachment he has U-turned back into…Sat Aug 04 2001 - 01:00
Speaking from the heartThe death last week of Eudora Welty marked the passing of a great American writerTue Jul 31 2001 - 01:00
Life in a small townPeople may complain about living in small towns, but few readers would dispute that the oppressively brutal aspects of small-…Sat Jul 28 2001 - 01:00
Gertrude and Claudius, by John Updike (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Forget everything you thought you knew about Shakespeare's HamletSat Jul 21 2001 - 01:00
Darkness rising in the American southJust when it seemed that the superb writers of the US south could no longer surprise, or improve upon one of the world's finest…Sat Jul 21 2001 - 01:00
Stories of talkative humanityAt its best, contemporary Indian fiction, more than any other world literature, matches the comic genius, pathos and complex …Sat Jul 14 2001 - 01:00
Lost, by Hans-Ulrich Treichel, translated by Carol Brown Janeway (Picador, £5.00 in UK)Post-war German fiction has certainly been dominated by Gⁿnter Grass, one of the most original, imaginative and angry of literature…Sat Jul 14 2001 - 01:00
Call If You Need Me by Raymond Carver (Harvill, £9.99 in UK)Raymond Carver died 13 years ago this coming AugustSat Jul 07 2001 - 01:00
Drifting through memoriesNo major writer takes as many risks while simultaneously appearing to play safe as apple pie, as the American domestic realist…Sat Jun 30 2001 - 01:00
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje (Picador, £6.99 in UK)Short-sightedly overlooked by last year's Booker panel, Ondaatje's powerful political, and polemical, lament is far less impressionistic…Sat Jun 23 2001 - 01:00
Dingle's beautiful enigmaOne of the most beautiful ancient buildings in Ireland, the mysterious and serene Gallarus Oratory, is also the most distinctive…Sat Jun 16 2001 - 01:00
Desperately seeking asylumIn 1994, Abdulrazak Gurnah was shortlisted for both the Booker and Whitbread prizes for ParadiseSat Jun 16 2001 - 01:00
The Far Side of a Kiss, by Anne Haverty (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)Essayist William Hazlitt's Libor Amoris, his "book of love" , published in 1823, caused quite a scandalSat Jun 16 2001 - 01:00
Roads, archaeological sites discussedMajor road-building is inevitable, and, according to a spokesman for Duchas, the Heritage Service, there are currently neither…Mon Jun 11 2001 - 01:00
Life suspended amid the ordinaryA young woman collects her child from her mother, the baby-sitter, with no intention of returning homeSat Jun 09 2001 - 01:00
Sans Moi, by Marie Desplechin (Granta, £6.99 in UK)Just about every clichΘ about slick, unbearably sophisticated and let's face it, unbearably French Parisian life is brilliantly…Sat Jun 09 2001 - 01:00
No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)Winner of this year's IMPAC Award, MacLeod's beautiful first novel possesses all the power, strange lyric grace and atmosphere…Sat Jun 02 2001 - 01:00
Pilgrim, by Timothy Findley (Faber, £7.99 in UK)Though not the finest of the nine novels by this interesting and underrated Canadian, Pilgrim again draws in his favourite themes…Sat May 26 2001 - 01:00
Been there, read thatJust as the monumental frescos of the Mexican artist Diego Rivera attempted to tell the story of his country, so too does another…Sat May 26 2001 - 01:00
From bored and breathless to the born-to-be readerThere's far more to being a good reader for children than putting on silly voices, Black Adder actor Miranda Richardson please…Sat May 19 2001 - 01:00
First novel which took 13 years to write wins ImpacFew critics will be disputing the result of the sixth International Impac Dublin Literary Award which has been won by one of …Tue May 15 2001 - 01:00
All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (Picador, £6.99 in UK)This first volume of what would become the Border Trilogy, was first published in 1992, some seven years after McCarthy's amoral…Sat May 12 2001 - 01:00
An icon of Irish republicanismCommissioned by Englishman Erskine Childers from famous Norwegian boat designer Colin Archer and paid for by the American parents…Sat May 12 2001 - 01:00
Through the door of historyMany speeches have been made at a national level about the need to preserve heritage, but it is at a local level that actions…Sat May 05 2001 - 01:00
`Write, write, write till your fingers break!'In his short life, Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) produced a vast body of work, and is - and will remain - one of the most influential…Sat May 05 2001 - 01:00
Courting nerves, heckles and visionCuirt 2001 began impressively with a Michael Longley/John McGahern double bill and sustained a quality, week-long international…Tue May 01 2001 - 01:00
Last Words by William Burroughs (Flamingo, £7.99 in UK)Long before his death at the age of 83 in August 1997, the Harvard-educated Burroughs, whose works include Junkie (1953) and …Sat Apr 28 2001 - 01:00
The Human Stain by Philip Roth (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)Denial, deception, retribution and justice served with brutal irony keep chief witness and Roth alter ego Nathan Zuckerman curious…Sat Apr 28 2001 - 01:00
In the Meadow of the CavesCloyne, or Cluain Uamha, is a small village situated in a broad valley in east CorkSat Apr 28 2001 - 01:00
Fowl playEven without the hype, the money and the claims being made that it will rival the Harry Potter books, this tough talking, jargonised…Sat Apr 28 2001 - 01:00
He only has eyes for yewsSelf-confessedly in love with knowledge, symbols and trees, Guido Mina di Sospiro looks like an academic and possesses the demeanour…Fri Apr 27 2001 - 01:00
Hushed halls of academiaEach day stressed pedestrians - workers, students and shoppers - as well as more leisurely tourists, pass the elegant door of…Tue Apr 24 2001 - 01:00
English Passengers, by Matthew Kneale (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Having looked like the dark horse capable of snatching last year's Booker Prize from Margaret Atwood, Kneale's colourful, funny…Sat Apr 21 2001 - 01:00
Goodbye seems to be the hardest wordThe English writer, Alan Sillitoe, has written many novels and short stories as well as eight volumes of poetry and an autobiography…Sat Apr 21 2001 - 01:00
Hawaii in a hackHow many lives does a cat have? Probably not quite as many as writer Paul TherouxSat Apr 14 2001 - 01:00
Ben, in the World, by Doris Lessing (Flamingo, £6.99 in UK)Lessing's work has always been dominated by her powerful sense of selfSat Apr 14 2001 - 01:00
Bats wake up to new threatsDusk. We are sitting on a canal bank beside an 18th-century bridgeTue Apr 10 2001 - 01:00
Ravelstein by Saul Bellow (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Judging by this fine novel published last year, late, late Bellow has lost little of the genius of his early, middle or late …Sat Apr 07 2001 - 01:00
`My partner is wounded . . . perhaps I might borrow your telephone'Felix Ferrer takes his leave of his wife and sets off on a daft odyssey to the Arctic, lured by the promise of abandoned antiques…Sat Apr 07 2001 - 01:00
Washed up in JamaicaDaughter of a bitterly disappointed woman and half-sister of a dangerously self-destructive beauty, Jean Landing lives in a chaotic…Sat Mar 31 2001 - 01:00
Kells happy having a cross to bearAn icy wind may have reduced the number of onlookers but the citizens of the ancient Co Meath monastic settlement of Ceannanas…Tue Mar 27 2001 - 01:00
Every good book deserves favourWhatever about the heady debates surrounding hyped "books of the moment" and the praise or derision they invariably engender, …Sat Mar 24 2001 - 00:00
To The Hermitage, by Malcolm Bradbury (Picador, £6.99 in UK)The first novel in eight years from one of Britain's most popular and generous literary critic-commentators was also to be his…Sat Mar 24 2001 - 00:00
Dons behaving badlyDavid Lodge and his fellow academic, critic and friend, the late Malcolm Bradbury were quite a literary double actMon Mar 19 2001 - 00:00
Dons behaving badlyDavid Lodge and his fellow academic, critic and friend, the late Malcolm Bradbury were quite a literary double actSat Mar 17 2001 - 00:00
