Should we ask for anything more?Versatility was much in evidence last night in the playing of the RTE Concert Orchestra (augmented to 59 players) under organist…Sat Oct 10 1998 - 01:00
Love among the cloudsLife does not offer many opportunities to "drop-out country boys with no prospects" like Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar, the central…Sat Oct 10 1998 - 01:00
White wedding off as hard-to-get Sam jilts Lily at the altar againThe Range Rover and horse-box arrayed as if for a state wedding told the story.Mon Sept 28 1998 - 01:00
A clash of worldsThaddeus is hopeless: well-bred, vague and certainly ineffectual until a late marriage to money provides him with the backing…Sat Sept 19 1998 - 01:00
These sporting livesChildhood and war are two of fiction's most enduring themes, yet in Olympia (Bloomsbury, £15Fri Sept 04 1998 - 01:00
Visitors, by Anita Brookner (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Few writers have written as many variations on a theme as successfully and elegantly as BrooknerSat Aug 29 1998 - 01:00
My Golden Trades, by Ivan Klima (Granta, £6.99 in UK)Although a fictionalised memoir, this book from the Czech author of Judge on Trial is ultimately a philosophical study of life…Sat Aug 29 1998 - 01:00
England, their EnglandThe problem with attempting clever fiction is that the result may be not very clever at allSat Aug 29 1998 - 01:00
Sleeping for EnglandThe debut book by the acclaimed young US writer, David Leavitt, the fiction collection Family Dancing, published in 1984, immediately…Sat Aug 22 1998 - 01:00
Fast Lane revisitedWhile it may be true that some writers have made careers out of writing the same book over and over again, it is odd that Jay…Sat Aug 15 1998 - 01:00
An actor's director with the necessary fire and passionIrish theatre currently appears to be experiencing exciting rebirths at such regular intervals that it is in danger of becoming…Sat Aug 15 1998 - 01:00
A death in the desertThe myth of the heroic in war literature has been gradually replaced by the story of individuals caught up in impossible situations…Sat Aug 08 1998 - 01:00
The men who made the WestIn 1801 Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United StatesSat Aug 08 1998 - 01:00
A chronicler of the gay world lightens upHumour is the agenda at the heart of Alan Hollinghurst's very English third novel, The Spell (Chatto, £15.99 in UK)Sat Aug 01 1998 - 01:00
Living in a hurryFew broadcasters seem more at home on television than Brian Farrell, former associate professor of politics at UCDThu Jul 30 1998 - 01:00
Where angels treadWriting to a formula - if it is a good one - probably has more advantages than pitfallsSat Jul 25 1998 - 01:00
Here on Earth, by Alice Hoffman (Vintage, £6.99 in UK)It takes a brave writer to attempt a present-day variation on Wuthering HeightsSat Jul 18 1998 - 01:00
The man who planted treesAt the beginning of Murray Bail's singular fourth novel, Eucalyptus (Har vill, £12Sat Jul 18 1998 - 01:00
Variations on a themeFew things in life are as certain as the annual arrival of a new Anita Brookner novel, usually timed to coincide - completely…Sat Jul 11 1998 - 01:00
A love affair in the shadowsThis account of a doomed love affair between an emotionally disengaged young boy and an older, uneducated woman as recalled by…Sat Jul 11 1998 - 01:00
The Dumb House, by John Burnside (Vintage, £5.99 in UK)Hot on the heels of John Lancaster's The Debt to Pleasure, a clever, amusing yarn about an insane foodie serial killer, came …Sat Jul 11 1998 - 01:00
Pig Tales, by Marie Darrieussecq, trans. Linda Coverdale (Faber, £6.99 in UK)The narrator is a poor young girl keen to work and great at giving massages, the sort of girl men tend to exploitSat Jul 04 1998 - 01:00
LiteratureSuch is the range of poets and novelists on offer at Cuirt earlier in the year, Galway is always in the happy position of having…Sat Jul 04 1998 - 01:00
Exercises in Style, by Raymond Queneau, trans. Barbara Wright (Calder, £6.99 in UK)No number of re-readings dull the comic genius of this enduring hilarious classicSat Jul 04 1998 - 01:00
The Old Religion, by David Mamet (Faber, £9.99 in UK)For all the fierce aggression of his theatre, American dramatist David Mamet has already indicated through his essays and first…Sat Jun 27 1998 - 01:00
Mary Stuart, by Friedrich Schiller, trans. F.J. Lamport (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)One of the tours-de-force of European theatre, Schiller's masterpiece is based on the rivalry between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen…Sat Jun 27 1998 - 01:00
Adrift on the FensThe whereabouts of Thomas Browne's skull acts as a suitably oblique starting point for W.GSat Jun 20 1998 - 01:00
Sula, by Toni MorrisonTwo young girls, their lives shaped by family secrets, become friends in their lonelinessSat Jun 20 1998 - 01:00
Relaxed Edwardian a fashion must for Bloomsday pilgrimsTruly it was a day for shaving in the great outdoorsWed Jun 17 1998 - 01:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryMany of the true Joyceans will by now have already begun their day's pilgrimage, regardless of climatic conditionsTue Jun 16 1998 - 01:00
Art for salePatronage in the arts is hardly a new idea, but perhaps the notion of an artist being paid to produce art in return for an undemanding…Sat Jun 13 1998 - 01:00
Literary winner recalls Romanian childhoodThe Romanian writer Herta Muller will tonight be formally awarded the third International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for her…Sat Jun 13 1998 - 01:00
Mouldering in the graveAny American with an interest in history would have an opinion on the abolitionist John Brown (1800-59), opinions as extreme …Sat Jun 06 1998 - 01:00
A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley (Flamingo, £6.99 in UK)A wealthy Iowa farmer decides to divide his kingdom between his daughtersSat Jun 06 1998 - 01:00
Losing Ground, by Donovan Wylie (4th Estate, £9.99 in UK)This slight volume acts as both self-conscious photographic record of the life and times of a group of "New Age Travellers" in…Sat Jun 06 1998 - 01:00
Women writers are back on the pageIt seems easy to forget that writers as modern as Willa Cather and Edith Wharton were both born in the 19th centurySat May 30 1998 - 01:00
Wooden melonsPolitical change and the collapse of totalitarian regimes have re-drawn the political map of Central and Eastern EuropeSat May 30 1998 - 01:00
Jealousy, by Alain RobbeGrillet (Calder, £4.99 in UK)A presiding genius of the French literary avant-garde, Alain Robbe-Grillet, scientist turned philosopher, challenged the novel…Sat May 23 1998 - 01:00
Jack Maggs, By Peter Carey (Faber, £6.99 in UK)Even at his most fantastical, Carey is a surprisingly disciplined writerSat May 23 1998 - 01:00
My Son the Fanatic, by Hanif Kureishi (Faber, £7.99 in UK)Parvez is an Asian cab driver long since settled in a grim north of England town but still an outsiderSat May 23 1998 - 01:00
Women on the tracksIrish athletics can currently claim three world-class women athletes: Sonia O'Sullivan, Catherina McKiernan and the unsung heroine…Fri May 22 1998 - 01:00
Romanian fiction writer wins Dublin's plumAnnouncing the winners of literary prizes often inspires more debate than delightTue May 19 1998 - 01:00
The book of RuthConvinced that real life is far more bizarre than most fiction, American novelist John Irving has always ensured that his stories…Sat May 16 1998 - 01:00
Brother of the More Famous Jack, by Barbara Trapido (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Granted a university place on the strength of a perceptive comment she makes about Jane Austen's Emma, narrator Katherine finds…Sat May 16 1998 - 01:00
The game of life and deathAs the century draws to a close, the horror of the second World War continues to preoccupy fiction writersSat May 09 1998 - 01:00
Silk, by Alessandro Baricco (Harvill, £3.99 in UK)A young man rejects his father's plans for a military career for him and chooses the life of a silk worm merchantSat May 09 1998 - 01:00
Far From the Land: Contemporary Irish Plays, edited by John Fairleigh (Methuen, £9.99 in UK)This is the sort of book one ends up buying even if that £10 had been destined for a visit to the supermarketSat May 09 1998 - 01:00
Quarantine, by Jim Crace (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Not for the first time, Whitbread Prize got it right after the Booker had got it wrongSat May 02 1998 - 01:00
Locked into a world that is beyond all helpOne of the main obstacles for the reader of Rick Moody's suburban fiction is the obvious comparison with John Cheever and John…Sat Apr 25 1998 - 01:00
Walking home from a savage warInman has had enough of the Civil War; he has fought, been wounded and now wants to go home to the woman he thinks he lovesSat Apr 25 1998 - 01:00
