Currently reading
Alex
The Glass Room
Peter the Great: His Life and World
If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children
Skin Deep
The Good Daughter
A Boy in Winter
The Tie That Binds
The Idiot (Everyman's Library, #254)
The Velvet Hours
Twenty Years A-Growing
This wasn’t my favorite book of the year by any means but it was an interesting read as I have an interest in Island life and the history of the life on the islands of the Coast of Ireland . While it was entertaining at times it did become repetitive and dragged and perhaps the translation from Irish to English takes away from the flow of the story. It has to be noted “ It is the first translation into English of a genuine account of the life of the Irish peasants written by one of themselves, as distinct from what has been written about them by the poets and dramatists of the Anglo Irish School” (taken directly from Preface) Maurice O Sullivan was born in 1904 on a remote Island of the Atlantic coast of Ireland called the Great Blasket. He wrote this story for his own pleasure and for the entertainment of his friends without any thought for readers outside of his own group of friends and this is reflected in the honest and plain language of the time. It is a wonderful insight into the customs and traditions and everyday life on the Island and the reader is transported back to past through the eyes of the author who recounts the story of his childhood.
A book that has wonderful historical value and while its not one for my favorites list I certainly don't regret reading it.
