She Fades Away, by Michael Carroll (Poolbeg, £3.99)Ghosts, grandads and awful jokes; Michael Carroll is apparently a writer of fantasy fiction but this is more of a high class …Sat May 18 1996 - 01:00
NOT TIN-TOTELLEN Kent of Dual Control International opera touring agency wants to give me a know what history of MoldaviaSat May 11 1996 - 01:00
High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby (Indigo, £5.99 in UK)Nick Hornby is the quintessential New Lad, and the dazzling prose of this, his first novel, inspired reviewers to dizzying heights…Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
Fresh thoughts from the music man"AN unpleasant critic is an impossible one, and a bore to his readers, ever accurate his judgments."Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
Jackie Under My Skin: interpreting an icon, by Wayne Koestenbaum (Fourth Estate, £8.99 in UK)The opening pages of this study of Jackie Onassis read like a study in high camp writing style; surely, you think, Wayne Koestenbaum…Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
Therapy, by David Lodge (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Pain, they say, is a warning that something is severely amiss: but when Lodge's latestanti hero, Laurence "Tubby" Passmore, starts…Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
The Silent Twins, by Marjorie Wallace (Vintage, £7.99 in UK)Distraught parents who occasionally wish for the return of the days when children - really were seen and not heard, beware - …Sat May 04 1996 - 01:00
Handel, with careIT used to be the musical equivalent of brown rice and sandals but nowadays it has become pretty much the norm: if you're doing…Sat May 04 1996 - 01:00
A Note Of Parting, by Liz Ryan (Coronet, £5.99 in UK)Don't be misled by the cover, a soft focus fishing village affair with a child standing forlornly on a sunlit beach; Liz Ryan…Sat May 04 1996 - 01:00
The Black Book, by Orhan Pamuk (Faber & Faber, £6.99 in UK)For most Westerners it's probably fair to say that Turkish culture is a closed book; certainly the Turkey of Orhan Pamuk's fiction…Sat May 04 1996 - 01:00
The next great tenor?WE heard it before, haven't we? The new Pavarotti. The new Domingo. The best since Caruso. The greatest thing sliced breadThu May 02 1996 - 01:00
Accidental Empires, by Robert X. Cringely (Penguin, £7.99 in UK)If you've been watching the Channel 4 television series on the development of the personal computer industry in the US, Triumph…Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
Mother of all weepiesTUTU gorgeous: that's how you might sum up La Sylphide, one of the gems of the "white" ballet repertoire, because the ethereal…Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
God Bless John Wayne, by Kinky Friedman (Faber & Faber, £8.99 in UK)The titles of Kinky Friedman's crime thrillers have been getting more and more extravagant; first there was Elvis, Jesus and …Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
Mysterious Skin, by Scott Helm (Black Swan, £6.99 in UK)A strange, sensitive and almost frighteningly accomplished first novel about gay teenagers in early 1980s middle America, Mysterious…Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
Riding the Rap, by Elmore Leonard (Penguin, £5.99 in UK)It begins innocuously enough with a fugitive arrested by accident on a drinks driving chargeSat Apr 20 1996 - 01:00
Alec Guinness Master of Disguise, by Gary O'Connor (Sceptre, £6.99)Alec Guinness may well, as, his biographer writes in his opening sentence, be a secret wrapped in an enigma inside aSat Apr 20 1996 - 01:00
Hemingway's Chair, by Michael Palin (Mandarin, £5.99 in UK)Michael Palin, in his TV manifestations at least, is an amiable and witty chapSat Apr 13 1996 - 01:00
Cautionary tales from the catwalksWhy does the world need supermodels? According to the French photographer Gerald Marie, who created the trio known in the business…Sat Apr 13 1996 - 01:00
To Have And To HoldFOR better or for worse, n sickness and in health, to have and to hold: even in a secular society, the comforting phrases of …Sat Apr 13 1996 - 01:00
Greta and Cecil, by Diana Souhami (Flamingo, £7.99 in UK)Do we ever tire of the exploits, or non exploits, of Greta Garbo and Cecil Beaton? Apparently not, for here's another book devoted…Sat Apr 13 1996 - 01:00
Is Ruth Rendell as good as Barbara Vine? Arminta Wallace meets them both, in live flesh, so to speak, during a visit to Dublin to promote the eighth Vine novel, The Brimstone WeddingAS Ruth Rendel she is the creator of Inspector Wexford, one of television's most genial murder investigatorsSat Apr 06 1996 - 01:00
The Dead School, by Patrick McCabe (Picador, £6.99 in UK)With this tale of two teachers gone to the bad Pat McCabe goes so close to the bone that jagged shards fly everywhere, puncturing…Sat Apr 06 1996 - 01:00
The Virago Book of Women Gardeners, edited by Deborah Kellaway (Virago, £7.99 in UK)What, an entire anthology of writers wittering on about herbaceous borders and Dutch gardens and the principles on which the …Sat Apr 06 1996 - 01:00
When The Tunnels Meet: Contemporary Romanian poetry, edited by John Fairleigh (Bloodaxe, £7.95 in UK)Tunnels meeting is an apt image, for this is more than just the usual selecting and translating job of the editor of an anthology…Sat Apr 06 1996 - 01:00
New music - which people actually likeA LONG line of melody paints a misty picture of a Scottish landscape; a haunted, anguished echo, recreates the pain of Mary Magdalene…Thu Apr 04 1996 - 01:00
Anthony Perkins A Haunted Life, by Ronald Bergan (Warner, £7.99 in UK)When it's good when, for example, he's describing Orson Welles directing his subject in the film of Kafka's The Trial "You are…Sat Mar 30 1996 - 00:00
La Moreau A Biography of Jeanne Moreau, by Marianne Gray (Warner, £7.99 in UK)Not only has Marianne Gray done her homework, researching the career of the ultra cool French actress with meticulous attention…Sat Mar 30 1996 - 00:00
99 poems in Translation An Anthology, edited by Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury and Geoffrey Godbert (Faber & Faber, £7.99 in UK)There seems to be no particular reason for this anthology nor indeed, for the magic number 99 why not 66? Or 100? which makes…Sat Mar 30 1996 - 00:00
Full Stop, by Joan Smith (Vintage, £5,99 in UK)Suppose you're staying at a friend's apartment in New York for the weekend, the friend being absent on what when you come to …Sat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
Without A Guide, edited by Katherine Govier (Pandora, £8.99 in UK)Another of those pointless anthologies of travel pieces by women can write, women can travel, ergo let's have a collection of…Sat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
Did you hear about yer wan?LANGUAGE is truly a wondrous thing. It is what enables me to write these words on this page and you to read themSat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
William Shakespeares' Richard III, by Ian McKellen (Doubleday, £8.99 in UK)"Shakespeare," writes Ian McKellen in his introduction to this classify produced screenplay, "took blank verse and ran with it…Sat Mar 23 1996 - 00:00
A Charmian way of lifeHERE we go again. Is it just me, or is contemporary popular fiction crammed to the covers with successful single career women…Wed Mar 20 1996 - 00:00
Our Game, by John le Carre (Coronet, £5.99 in UK)Spying may have gone out of fashion, but spy thrillers never will, it seems at least as long as the master himself stays in the…Sat Mar 16 1996 - 00:00
A hurricaine called Hiaasen. Stormy Weather, by Carl Hiaasen, read by Edward Asher (Random House, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK)Sat Mar 16 1996 - 00:00
The Black Album, by Hanif Kureishi (Faber & Faber, £5.99 in UK)Kureishi's fiction flows easily into the gaps where cultures don't quite meet immigrant culture, native culture, popular culture…Sat Mar 16 1996 - 00:00
The Sculptress, by Minette Walters (Pan, £5,99 in UK)Murderess most horrible, that's Olive Martin - who, having made lamb cutlets of her mother and sister and a mess of the kitchen…Sat Mar 09 1996 - 00:00
Jodie Foster, by Philippa Kennedy (Pan, £5.99)Hollywood, it is said, can't figure Jodie Foster out - not because she dabbles in the occult or talks to trees because she's …Sat Mar 09 1996 - 00:00
Get Shorty, by Elmore Leonard (Penguin, £5.99 in UK)The ultra-cool movie version is on the way, courtesy of the Dublin Film Festival, but Leonard's bleak black comedy about a Miami…Sat Mar 09 1996 - 00:00
Absolutely charmingIT'S like.. " Philippe Cassard is searching for the right word to describe the finale of Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, …Sat Mar 02 1996 - 00:00
Mimi's Ghost by Tim Parks (Minerva, £6.99)Tim Parks has approached fiction via the academic route, being the translator of - among others - Italo Calvino and Roberto Calasso…Sat Mar 02 1996 - 00:00
You gotta search for the hero to buy your carBLACK and white shot. A car glides, slim and stylish and gleaming silver, across an apparently endless bridgeSat Mar 02 1996 - 00:00
Phillippa's Folly By Louise Couper (Poolbeg, £4.99)Up to now Irish "light" fiction has struck me as having a slightly abashed air, like someone who finds themselves at an opening…Sat Mar 02 1996 - 00:00
Original Sin, by P.D. James (Penguin, £5.99)Is it just me, or is there a distinctly Dickensian feel to this thriller? I mean, it is just another competently crafted and …Sat Feb 24 1996 - 00:00
Semana Santa, by David Hewson (Harpercollins, £5.99 in UK)A chunky thriller set picturesquely amid the corridas and corruption of Holy Week in Andalucia, Semana Santa is steeped in Spanish…Sat Feb 24 1996 - 00:00
A voice to die withTHE sleepy sidestreets of the quiet south London suburb of Putney seem about as far removed as you can get from the tempests …Thu Feb 22 1996 - 00:00
Tapes et the River Delta, by Peter Cunningham (Arrow, £5.99 in UK)Peter Cunningham sets himself an ambitious agenda, in this wide ranging thriller which spans a century of Irish history and he…Sat Feb 17 1996 - 00:00
On Trial For Murder, by Douglas Wynn (Pan, £6.99 in UK)A pocket dictionary of famous murder trials? Just what everyone's pocket has been waiting for, I'd say: a handy alphabetical …Sat Feb 17 1996 - 00:00
