by Kevin Barry
bookshelves: one-penny-wonder, paper-read, impac-winner, britain-ireland, amusing, teh-brillianz, spring-2014 Read from December 05, 2013 to April 13, 2014 This is his first novel; Barry has previously written short fiction and his collection 'There Are Little Kingdoms' won the Rooney Prize in 2...
This book was a challenge, but in a good way. It's set 40 years in the future, in a fictitious city in the west of Ireland. (In the interest of full disclosure: I lived in Galway, a real city in the west of Ireland, for three years, so I'm a bit biased toward the country and the region.) The charact...
Got as far as page 102 and realised that I was just skimming and not really reading and what's more I didn't care if every character died on the spot. Stopped reading. Joseph O'Connor on the back talks about it being "Joyce meets Anthony Burgess and as funny as Flann O'Brien"; Irvine Welsh says "H...
To read Kevin Barry's "City of Bohane" is to experience a verbal cross of Joyce and Burgess, with perhaps a bit of Russell Hoban's "RIdley Walker" in the background. Joyce of course is no surprise -- this is Irish writing, after all -- and I am referring to the "Clockwork Orange" style of Anthony Bu...
wait for the price to drop:O)IMPAC Winner 2013: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22795515
The language dazzled and taunted and tempted till the end, but I can't call the story or the ending satisfying. For all the detailing, much was not developed that could have been, and without a lot more effort, which, it seems to me, would have made this a better story.It's a new book, just out this...
Kevin Barry writes in a style that takes some getting used to. At first, I struggled to try and get a grip on his inventive dialog, but soon found it was best to let it wash over me, focusing more on the rhythm, the feel of it. The girls skanked in the wee hours to dub-plate cuts blasted from the T...
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