Everything in Belfast is JakeJAKE is not happy. Since his English girlfriend left him and Belfast - six months previously, daily life has degenerated into…Sat Aug 10 1996 - 01:00
Peter Carey - Collected Stories (Faber, £6.99, in UK)Winner of the 1988 Booker Prize with Oscar and Lucinda, and also author of Bliss (1981) and Illywhacker (1985), Australian Carey…Sat Aug 10 1996 - 01:00
Drama of a literary duetNOVELIST Edna O'Brien and poet Brendan Kennelly together created an exciting theatrical experience as they celebrated the first…Mon Aug 05 1996 - 01:00
Life: A User's Manual, by Georges Perec (Harvill, £6.99 in UK).First published in France to immediate acclaim in 1978 and equally successful on its English language publication in 1987, this…Sat Aug 03 1996 - 01:00
The politics of poetryALTHOUGH the sun has decided to stay high over the Glens of Antrim, one cloud did threaten the Hewitt Summer School, as bewilderment…Fri Aug 02 1996 - 01:00
Drawing deep from the well of diversitySHARP sunshine cuts through the romantic mist shrouding the Antrim coast road, one of the most dramatically beautiful routes …Thu Aug 01 1996 - 01:00
Fathers and sons, mothers and wivesIN flight from a life in England beleagured by disappointments of his own making, Edward Mason brings his disappointed wife and…Sat Jul 27 1996 - 01:00
Granta - The Best of Young American Novelists (Granta, £7.99 in UK)Any selection claiming to be the "best" of anything should be approached with cautionSat Jul 20 1996 - 01:00
The Information, by Martin Amis (Flamingo, £6.99 in UK)Failed writer Richard Tull has a problem well, severalSat Jul 20 1996 - 01:00
The Ghost Roads, by Pat Barker (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Powerful, humane, relentlessly unsentimental and unforgettable, Barker's atmospheric novel is a chilling exploration of men damaged…Sat Jul 20 1996 - 01:00
A posthumous hodgepodgeLIKE any layabout, I wanted to write but my early efforts were a failure," wrote the late Bruce Chatwin in his short introduction…Sat Jul 20 1996 - 01:00
The Following Story, by Cees Nooteboorn (Panther, £5.99 in UK)This gentle, elegantly European novel of ideas and aphorisms draws one into the private musings of Hernann Mussert, trapped as…Sat Jul 13 1996 - 01:00
The I of the beholderTHE writer as cynic, as aloof observer, opportunist, outsider egoist, truth teller, reporter, restless traveller, unreliable …Sat Jul 13 1996 - 01:00
Gold RushIN a matter of days, the world - or at least most households - will be divided as the grumps, who neither like nor understand…Sat Jul 13 1996 - 01:00
ROMANCING THE STONETHE multi-layered history of this country has so marked the landscape that it is possible to trace much of Ireland's complex …Thu Jul 11 1996 - 01:00
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Panther, £5.99 in UK)First published in 1962 in Novy Mir, the Russian literary journal, Solzhenitsyn's debut soon won classic status and remains one…Tue Jul 09 1996 - 01:00
Adrift on the vernacular river"I'd a knowed," announced Huck Finn near the close of Mark Twain's immortal picaresque tale, "what a trouble it was to make a…Tue Jul 09 1996 - 01:00
Adrift on the vernacular river"I'd a knowed," announced Huck Finn near the close of Mark Twain's immortal picaresque tale, "what a trouble it was to make a…Sat Jul 06 1996 - 01:00
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Panther, £5.99 in UK)First published in 1962 in Novy Mir, the Russian literary journal, Solzhenitsyn's debut soon won classic status and remains one…Sat Jul 06 1996 - 01:00
In search of the European novelIT is tempting to suggest that the European novel, if such an entity ever truly existed, died with the passing of Henry James…Sat Jun 29 1996 - 01:00
A Fugitive comes homeTHE writers of the Southern States have written much of the finest American fictionSat Jun 22 1996 - 01:00
Summertime ghosts from an earlier existenceCOMFORTABLY in demand as a freelance book editor, Pauline is professionally secure enough to spend the summer out of London and…Fri Jun 21 1996 - 01:00
RUNNING THE SHOWIRELAND's largest and strongest ever team of 74 athletes and sportsmen is finalising preparations for this summer's centenary…Thu Jun 20 1996 - 01:00
Malouf wins first Impac literary awardIT was no coincidence that the Australian novelist David Malouf was presented with the inaugural Impac Dublin £100,000 International…Mon Jun 17 1996 - 01:00
The time of the anti-heroesPOLITICAL allegory has long been the mainstay of Latin American fiction, along with a propensity for literary exuberance which…Sat Jun 15 1996 - 01:00
The Apprentice, bye Eamon Kelly (Marino, £6.99)The actor Eamon Kelly's life - he was born in 1914 - has spanned much of the history of modern IrelandSat Jun 08 1996 - 01:00
Everyman on his difficult journeyIT is the absence of political rhetoric and didactic asides makes Hans Fallada's German classic, Little Man - What Now? (Berlin…Sat Jun 08 1996 - 01:00
Miss Undine's Living Room, by James Wilcox (Fourth Estate, £6.99 in UK).Memory expert Uncle L DL is 91, bedridden and exists on bananas, Vienna sausages and sickly sweet portSat Jun 01 1996 - 01:00
Paula by Isabel Allede (Flamingo, £6.99 in UK)When Isabel Allende's 28 year old daughter went into a fatal coma, her mother attempted to prolong her life by telling stories…Sat Jun 01 1996 - 01:00
One man and his motherLIFE is full of wrong turnings and dead ends, all of which are invariably open to Anita Brookner's characters, who collectively…Sat Jun 01 1996 - 01:00
MIGHTY MAVERICKTHE has trekked and climbed at 21,500 feet in the Himalaya as well as having years of experience walking the Yorkshire Dales …Thu May 30 1996 - 01:00
The years of madnessHATTIE BARNES now a mother and doctor, revisits her childhood with particular reference to her mother MaggieSat May 25 1996 - 01:00
Writer of mixed heritage who is quintessentially AustralianDEBATE surrounded the mixed bag shortlist and the wisdom, never mind the ethics, of offering £100,000 for one novel, but the …Sat May 25 1996 - 01:00
Too big for their books?DEBATED, disputed, often derided, at times righteously denounced as most observers are by now aware, about the most interesting…Tue May 21 1996 - 01:00
Toad the timelessTOAD the brave, Toad the wonderful, Toad the incredibly handsomeSat May 18 1996 - 01:00
The power of memoryAS she lies in bed recalling scenes from her childhood, Helen, one of the characters in Deirdre Madden's fifth novel, One by …Sat May 18 1996 - 01:00
Diana - The Goddess Who Hunts Alone, by Carlos Fuentes (Bloomsbury, £5.99 in UK)No, this is not a pop biography of the Princess of Wales, although in many ways, it is just as exploitativeSat May 18 1996 - 01:00
Writing at the crossroadsIMPROVING any road network system imposes temporary complications such as diversions but it also consolidates the lasting nightmare…Thu May 16 1996 - 01:00
Classwork, edited by Malcolm Brad bury (Sceptre, £6.99 in UK)Considering the habit British reviewers have of sneeringly dismissing creative writing courses as an American invention, it really…Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
Polite Sex, by James Wilcox (Fourth Estate, £6.99 in UK)Having enjoyed James Wilcox's previous comedies about small town life Louisian a style, this reader was looking forward to further…Sat May 11 1996 - 01:00
Heaney honours Yeats's criterionHAD IT been Russia, where there is a long tradition of poets filling football stadiums, there would have been no noveltyMon May 06 1996 - 01:00
The Afterlife, by John Updike (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)Age and an awareness of approaching death are the prevailing themes of these 22 stories from one of international fiction's surest…Sat May 04 1996 - 01:00
MAGICIAN OF THE ORDINARYVERY Irish poet, locked into the landscape that nurtured him and continues to inspire him..Thu May 02 1996 - 01:00
The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Panther, £5.99 in UK).Di Lampedusa died in 1957 and The Leopard, his only novel, was published the following yearSat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
Borderliners, by Peter Hoeg (Harvill, £5.99 in UK)Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow has a lot to answer forSat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
Consider the liliesGRADUALLY, and with the apparent ease which has been the mark of his literary career, the urbane and wise John Updike has told…Sat Apr 27 1996 - 01:00
BATTERSBY'S BESTWITH the array of summer schools on offer about something for anyone with an interest in Irish literature, history and or politics…Tue Apr 23 1996 - 01:00
