Medieval? Anything but (Part 1)Mystery man and miracle worker, Gutenberg the hero of the Book, or at least the inventor of printing and so the herald of a non…Sat Sept 30 2000 - 01:00
Tale of two bruised charactersClara is, as she says with heavy irony, "post-operative"Sat Sept 23 2000 - 01:00
Vertigo, by W.G. Sebald (Harvill, £6.99 in UK)Originally published in Germany in 1990, this is the first of the remarkable part-philosophical travelogue, part-fiction narratives…Sat Sept 23 2000 - 01:00
Sparks still flyingEven at its wittiest, Muriel Spark's eccentric fiction tends towards the blacker side of black while she has always demonstrated…Sat Sept 16 2000 - 01:00
Playing hopscotch on a minefieldEarly in her strange, sad story, the now elderly Iris Chase ponders the trendy approach to designer tradition currently offered…Sat Sept 16 2000 - 01:00
Rabbis in the great outdoorsPressburger is the least predictable of writers, as he makes clear in his previous books, The Law of White Spaces and Teeth and…Sat Sept 09 2000 - 01:00
The Springs of Affection, by Maeve Brennan (Flamingo, £6.99 in UK)If ever a book of short stories could be accused of lulling the reader into a cosy sense of safe territory before unleashing …Sat Sept 02 2000 - 01:00
Working ourselves to deathPaul Sinclair seems an unlikely narrator for a J.G. Ballard novelSat Sept 02 2000 - 01:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryEveryone has their idea about the moment they became a grown-upTue Aug 29 2000 - 01:00
Girl With A Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier (Flamingo, £6.99 in UK)A vermeer painting inspires this taut, atmospheric novel in which an older, wiser Griet tells her storySat Aug 26 2000 - 01:00
The business of being RussianAndrey Bely's influence on modern Russian literature is twofoldSat Aug 26 2000 - 01:00
Lovers for a Day, by Ivan Klima (Granta, £6.99 in UK)NOT one of the great prose stylists, the Prague writer Klima succeeds through his unsentimental realism, calm understanding of…Sat Aug 26 2000 - 01:00
On the brink of good tasteAs early as the opening pages of this bizarre love story, the narrator, Ruben Olivier, widower and retired librarian, is resisting…Sat Aug 19 2000 - 01:00
Breeders and buyers keep their eyes on events as Connemara ponies seek judges' endorsementAlmost as interesting as the judging in the ring at the annual Connemara Pony Show at Clifden is the dealing going on in the …Fri Aug 18 2000 - 01:00
When writing becomes a habitIn the closing monologue of Talking It Over (1991), an elderly French landlady recalls her husband having once told her that "…Sat Aug 12 2000 - 01:00
When writing becomes a habitLove, etc. by Julian Barnes. Cape, 250 pp, £15.99 in UKSat Aug 12 2000 - 01:00
Destiny by Tim Parks (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)Christopher Burton is an English journalist-cum-cultural commentator with specialist knowledge of Italy, whose career has been…Sat Aug 12 2000 - 01:00
Life, always lifeRaymond Carver, the writer of calmly desperate introspective domestic realism, emerged in the mid-1970s as a literary bridge …Sat Aug 05 2000 - 01:00
A tourist in your own country - Historic stonesNewgrange Passage Tomb, Co MeathWed Aug 02 2000 - 01:00
Old Soldiers, by Paul Bailey (4th Estate, £5.99 in UK)Bailey's deceptively simple, very English, story about two ancient soldiers who meet up in an inhospitable London explores contrasting…Sat Jul 29 2000 - 01:00
Fraught for her comfortKate is pregnant and hovering on the edges of her new partner's other lifeSat Jul 29 2000 - 01:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryJohann Sebastian Bach died on this day, July 28th, 1750, at 8.15 in the evening, just over a week after suffering a strokeFri Jul 28 2000 - 01:00
An Irishman's DiaryThings look different at night. After miles of darkness, a faint glow gradually emerged as a blazing fireMon Jul 24 2000 - 01:00
From the lofty heights of darknessThe Gothic quickly became part of the strange world the fiction of novelist Patrick McGrath takes place inSat Jul 22 2000 - 01:00
Undue Influence, by Anita Brookner (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Often criticised for the narrowness of her theme, that of the sexual aspirations and tensions of solitary, middle-class Londoners…Sat Jul 22 2000 - 01:00
Belfast poet wins Britain's oldest literary prizeBritain's oldest literary award, the Hawthornden Prize, has this year been won by an Irish writerMon Jul 17 2000 - 01:00
The dark side of romanceThere are writers able to create the same world consistently, invariably populated by the same group of misplaced, love-lorn …Sat Jul 15 2000 - 01:00
Irish Round Towers by Roger Stalley (Country House Dublin, £5.99)Among the most dramatic and enigmatic of archaeological features gracing the Irish landscape is the round tower, the origins …Sat Jul 15 2000 - 01:00
Refuge of the doomedThere is nothing pretty or quaint about the tall, narrow canal building on the Prinsengracht in which Anne Frank lived for the…Sat Jul 08 2000 - 01:00
Timbuktu by Paul Auster (Faber, £6.99 in UK)Mr Bones is a dog about to face the ultimate canine tragedy, the death of his master Willy, a likeable failed poet, reformed …Sat Jul 08 2000 - 01:00
They're off to see wonderful wizard of J.K. RowlingBookshops throughout Ireland, Britain and the US are poised to meet their greatest challenge: how to sell the latest Harry Potter…Fri Jul 07 2000 - 01:00
Frocks and drollsThe novelist Fanny Burney (1752-1840) lived the uneventful existence of a Regency spinster, aside from an unhappy stint at court…Sat Jul 01 2000 - 01:00
Close Range, by Annie Proulx (Fourth Estate, £6.99 in UK)Proulx's stern and ironic tone cuts through this tough, physical collection with marksman's accuracySat Jul 01 2000 - 01:00
The unappreciated adventures of an organistWith only days to go before his world premiere performance of Ian Wilson's History is Vanity as part of his Millennium Organ …Sat Jun 24 2000 - 01:00
The queen's the thingEver felt you knew everything you needed to know about Shakespeare's Hamlet? Still feeling confident about your interpretation…Sat Jun 24 2000 - 01:00
Hume likens unionists to Afrikaners at literary awardThe unionist mentality is that of an Afrikaner mindset, while that of the nationalist, throughout Ireland, is territorial, according…Mon Jun 19 2000 - 01:00
A rich, vibrant voice in a gentle new worldJayojit, now divorced, returns home to his native Calcutta from his life as a US academic, to visit his aged parentsSat Jun 17 2000 - 01:00
Headlong, by Michael Frayn (Faber, £6.99 in UK)John Mortimer meets David Lodge in this likeable, almost funny, over-plotted, good-ish English farce which has its moments but…Sat Jun 10 2000 - 01:00
Back on the Bradbury bandwagonQuestion: When is a plot not a plot? Answer: When the author decides to hijack historical fact and harness it with a sack of …Sat Jun 10 2000 - 01:00
Child of evilBen Lovatt is the definitive outsider: an outcast existing by instinct, ever moving between the concern of a kindly few and the…Sat Jun 03 2000 - 01:00
Everything You Need by A.L. Kennedy (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)Writer Nathan Staples is middle-aged, messed up and only now prepared to inform his grown daughter of his existenceSat May 27 2000 - 01:00
An emigrant ponders the nations his people builtThe 500-year rape of Africa is one of history's tragedies and possibly the West's most shameful collective crimeSat May 27 2000 - 01:00
Royal Canal reopened to the acclaim of onlookersCelebration combined with a strong sense of nostalgia greeted the weekend's reopening of the Royal CanalMon May 22 2000 - 01:00
The Banyan Tree, by Christopher Nolan (Phoenix, £6.99 in UK)Set in Westmeath and spanning the century, this is a beautiful, engaging and profound story of one woman's lifeSat May 20 2000 - 01:00
Last days of an outlaw prophetEven his admirers will admit the question most often asked about Williams Burroughs was not how great he was, but rather, exactly…Sat May 20 2000 - 01:00
From here to eternityMadness has always dominated the fiction of Canadian Timothy FindleySat May 13 2000 - 01:00
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford (Penguin, £9.99 in UK)The brittle universe inhabited by Mitford's English society folk can lure or repel in equal measureSat May 13 2000 - 01:00
