Ah Ireland!

Ireland! We all have an idea in our head of what that means. Some things come to mind: green, Irish Whiskey, hard times, storytelling. In the book When All Is Said, by Anne Griffin, all these archetypes are explored.  Aquintessential Irish novel, filled with melancholy and angst. Maurice is 84, his beloved wife Sadie gone now for two years. His only child, a son lives in America with his family. He now sits at a bar in a restaurant, intending to toast the five individuals who had the greatest impact on his life. He has reserved the VIP suite for the night. The bar where he sits, the hotel he is in, had once been the house of the wealthiest family in the village. This house figured largely in his youth, and the memories are not good ones. He is lonely,sorely misses his wife, feels as if he belongs nowhere, to none. Now though, Maurice has a plan.

As he drinks each drink we learn the story of his life. The importance of a gold coin, which is also the continuous item that travels through his stories. Maurice is very likable, a flawed character, and so very human, one filled with guilt and envy. Love that couldn't be expressed. A sensitive exploration of guilt and regret. A quiet novel, a heartfelt story that feels very real. A story of a father and son that had trouble connecting. The last chapter is an emotional slayer, but the memorable last line brought the curtain down. ML

Moving Forward

What happens when you have lost everything? That’s what happens to Diane, a shopkeeper in Paris. She runs a literary café with her loving, but flighty friend Felix. Life is wonderful when a sudden accident claims the lives of Diane’s husband and her young daughter. She is completely lost. After a year of grieving she decides to go to Ireland. Maybe a change will do her some good.  Happy People Read and Drink Coffee by Agnes Martin-Lugand is a story about coming back to life. The characters are sensitive and familiar. The good news is that a sequel is coming out next year. DB

The Bones of a Saint

Saint Brigid's Bones: A Celtic Adventure, is a novel about the world of ancient Ireland, where Christianity and paganism are existing side by side. St. Brigid's bones have been stolen from the small monastery in Kildare that she established and the sisters face a cold winter. In ancient times pilgrims would make a prayer journey to a monastery and pray in the presence of saintly bones, and make a financial offering. Without the bones, the sisters will have no income, so a young nun, Sister Deirdre is assigned the task of finding them. She is appealing, a bit of a rebel, and comes from a family of pagans and singers, a noble family. This novel is written by a historian, Philip Freeman, and the history is rich and colorful, with sympathetic characters. For those history lovers! ML

Growing Up Is Hard To Do

If you like strong first-person narratives, I invite you to take the hand of ten-year old Paddy Clarke and let him lead you through his engaging tale of growing up in 1960s Ireland. Roddy Doyle expertly captures the voice of his young protagonist in the Booker Prize-winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, guiding readers through Paddy's thoughts and recollections, sometimes jumping from one story to another and back again. Against the backdrop of his parents' deteriorating marriage, Paddy details his exploits in Barrytown (including setting fires, enduring school humiliations, and torturing his little brother, "Sinbad"). The tone of the story starts out lighthearted and gradually becomes more wistful, culminating in the origin of the book's title as Paddy leaves the innocence of childhood behind. HM

Check out this interview with Roddy Doyle and discover how Paddy came to be: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/29/paddy-clarke-ha-roddy-doyle

Eternal Flame

In Ghost Light, Joseph O'Connor explores what remains after a great romance has come to an end. Based on the real-life relationship between Irish playwright John Synge and his teen-aged muse, actress Molly Allgood, readers are taken on a journey through 1900s Dublin and 1950s London. Only a few years into their secret courtship, Synge dies, leaving young Molly alone to contemplate their love affair in the decades that follow. Through Molly's narration, we are told that a ghost light is the single luminescent left to burn in the theatre, always avoiding complete darkness. Synge's memory is Molly's ghost light and her constant companion during her downward spiral to alcoholism and destitution, but Molly herself is also a ghost light, the only flame left from a time gone by. O'Connor's prose makes for a very quick and engaging read, leading readers down the rabbit hole within his heroine's mind. HM

Is Blood Thicker Than Water?

Twenty-two years ago, Detective Frank Mackey was just a teenager with big dreams who planned to elope with his girlfriend, Rosie Daly. Their tickets were bought, their bags packed, and their lives in the Dublin slums were set to change forever. Unfortunately, while Frank waited anxiously under a streetlight on the night of their supposed escape, Rosie decided to stand him up and head to London alone. At least that's what he had always assumed. Then Rosie's battered and moldy suitcase is discovered behind a fireplace in a derelict house in Faithful Place and Detective Mackey is called back by his estranged, dysfunctional family to find out what actually happened to Rosie Daly two decades ago. Faithful Place is the third book in Tana French's loosely connected Dublin Murder Squad series and can be read independently of the previous titles, In the Woods and The Likeness.

For more international crime thrillers, check out our current display and reading list next time you're in the library. HM