Book picks similar to
Barnacle Soup and Other Stories from the West of Ireland by Josie Gray
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Undaunted: Five True Stories from World War II
J. Pepper Bryars - 2013
Army, the U.S. Army Air Corps, the U.S. Marines, and the U.S. Merchant Marines.These stories are from both theaters – European and Pacific – and they span the length of the war. First we meet a young artillery officer who devises a plan to keep the Japanese at bay while besieged in the Philippines. Then we walk beside a soldier who loses his leg after the infamous Bataan Death March. Next we leap from a crippled plane with a bombardier in the skies over Nazi-occupied France, then sail with a Merchant Seaman through the U-boat infested waters of the Mediterranean, and finally stand with an awestruck Marine in the middle of downtown Nagasaki.Undaunted adds the tales of these courageous men to the historic record of American bravery and sacrifice during World War II.
Still Loved…Still Missed!
Mridula മൃദുല - 2019
These stories span characters and emotional states with canny details that touch the depths of your soul. Picturing the complexities of love, misery and mystery, the stories try to gnaw your heart like never before.• What does a flower teach us we often fail to see?• “The belly is an ungrateful wretch.” Is it true?• Ever wondered about the sparseness and illusions in life?• Does death put an end to true love?• Have all the ascetics won over their emotions?With the power of simple language, this book transports the readers to a world scarcely thought of in our bustling lives. The allegories maintain an intense rhythm of life prompting the readers to perceive things from a unique angle.“A whole bookful to make you think, cry, think again and move on.”
The Gospel According to Blindboy
Blindboy Boatclub - 2017
Covering themes ranging from love and death to sex and politics, there's a story about a girl from Tipp being kicked out of ISIS, a van powered by Cork people's accents and a man who drags a fridge on his back through Limerick.
The Homecoming and Other Stories: A BBC Audio Exclusive
Maeve Binchy - 2001
In Homecoming, the Brennans run Quentin's restaurant in Dublin for the owner, who lives abroad. But what will happen when he suddenly pays a visit? Telling Stories sees Irene's fiancÈ turning up the night before the wedding with a face as white as the dress that is to be worn the next day. Then trouble starts... In Needy, Heather is painfully aware that Valentine's Day declarations of love should be viewed with suspicion, even if the sender is the one she loves. And in The Interview, Bessie is deaf and needs a place in a special school. But will she pass the interview?
Postcard Stories
Jan Carson - 2017
Each of these tiny stories was inspired by an event, an overheard conversation, a piece of art or just a fleeting glance of something worth thinking about further.Collected in one volume, Carson's postcards present a panoramic view of contemporary Belfast -- its coffee shops, streets and museums and airports -- and offer it to the wider world. Even as they seem to spring from a writer's solitary perspective, taken together, these observations and their distribution speak of human connectedness. Like a pleasant surprise in the mail, this collection reminds us how many friendships are born and strengthened in a story shared.Illustrated by Benjamin Phillips.
Born to Ride: The Autobiography of Stephen Roche
Stephen Roche - 2012
Victory at the World Cycling Championship in Austria completed a near-unprecedented ‘triple crown’ that included triumphs in the same year at the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia. In April, against all odds, he fought his own team and an angry, partisan Italian crowd who spat at him on his way to taking the Giro. In July a superhuman effort at La Plagne saw him secure the yellow jersey just before he blacked out. Roche’s victory in Austria confirmed his virtuosity.Born to Ride, Stephen Roche’s first full autobiography, uses his best year as the starting point to explore the rest of his life. He doesn’t hold back as he examines the many ups and downs of his time on and off the bike, scrutinising victories, defeats, rivals, serious injury, doping allegations and agonizing family breakdown. At the heart of the book lies an enigma. For all his charm and rare, natural talent, beneath the surface lies an incredible tenacity and determination. Roche finally reveals himself as a smiling assassin; a master-strategist who lives to attack.
Party Animal
Marisa Mackle - 2008
All royalties from the sale of this work will go to Irish animal rescue centres, making life better for our four-legged friends.
That Old Country Music
Kevin Barry - 2020
All of his prodigious gifts of language, character, and setting in these eleven exquisite stories transport the reader to an Ireland both timeless and recognizably modern. Shot through with dark humor and the uncanny power of the primal and unchanging Irish landscape, the stories in That Old Country Music represent some of the finest fiction being written today.
The Tour Box Set
Jean Grainger - 2021
Witty, informative, and with a touch of romance, The Tour offers a unique look at the lives of others amidst the Emerald Isle. Safe at the Edge of the WorldWhen a shadowy couple turn up on Conor O’Shea’s grand tour of Ireland, the tranquility of Ireland’s landscape acts as a shelter against the stormy reality of the life they left behind.On the run from a notorious mob boss, this mysterious couple flees the U.S. in search of sanctuary on the shores of the Emerald Isle, hoping to blend in with the tourists. In their wake lies a mafia family’s secrets and a scarred priest torn between his duty to the cloth and to the truth.Intriguing and uniquely consuming, Father Declan Sullivan’s tale of destiny and duty lies at the feet of those he has betrayed. Can distance and deliverance save the innocent in their desperate pursuit for peace, or will evil catch up to them all?In Safe at the Edge of the World, author Jean Grainger captures the soothing beauty of Ireland in the lives of those fleeing a criminal bent on revenge. The Story of Grenville KingConor O’Shea has had enough of driving and guiding tours of Ireland.So when an opportunity to renovate and run the magnificent but rundown Castle Dysert as a five-star resort presents itself, he grabs it with both hands.But problems arise almost immediately when his business partner appears to have more on her agenda than just business.To add to that, his darling wife seems discontented as a stay at home mom, and his in-laws have moved in. With his family’s future now entangled in a stunningly beautiful old castle on the coast of Clare, Conor undertakes a mammoth project, and in so doing, he uncovers the troubled past of this ancient stronghold. The mystery of the family who lived, loved, and lost their lives within the walls of the castle are reflected in his own family as they too struggle to let go of the past.Like in every small Irish village, gossip abounds. But do the ghosts of regret still haunt these ancient hallways? It is now left to Conor to explore the truth and uncover a heartbreaking lesson on the power of memory and the long threads that bind us together.In The Story of Grenville King, Jean Grainger takes you once again to the real heart of Ireland.
Further Cuttings From Cruiskeen Lawn
Flann O'Brien - 1976
edition. British publication by Hart-Davis, McGibbon Ltd ('76).-- A companion to The Best of Myles, Further Cuttings culls more scathing selections from "Cruiskeen Lawn", Flann O'Brien's column in the Irish Times written under the pseudonym Myles na Gopaleen.-- This volume covers the years 1947-1957 and finds O'Brien's alter ego clashing with the law on numerous charges, including larceny, using bad language, and marrying without the consent of his parents. It also includes several bizarre obituaries, witty criticisms of George Bernard Shaw, Sean O' Faolain, and other literary figures, the return of the preposterous "Brother", and the first article ever ascribed to Myles (published in 1940).
Gone
Colum McCann - 2014
Author of the New York Times bestsellers “Let the Great World Spin” and “Transatlantic,” McCann has been called “a giant among us” (Peter Carey), “dazzlingly talented” (O: The Oprah Magazine), and “that rare species in contemporary fiction: a literary writer who is an exceptional storyteller” (The Independent). He’s received a National Book Award, an Oscar nomination, and a slew of international prizes. His talents are on full display in his new short story, “Gone,” a deeply affecting literary thriller about a mother and son, alone in a cottage on the west coast of Ireland, and the search that ensues when the boy—whom she adopted years before, deaf and with “already a whole history written in him”—goes missing. He slips away in early morning, down to the cold sea with his new Christmas wetsuit, and as the hours and days drag on, the coast guard, police, dogs, fishermen, farmers, and schoolchildren holding hands search the sea and walk the fields while the television crews and detectives come and go, the police at the cottage seeming to “ghost into one another: almost as if they could slip into one another’s faces.” The mother, Rebecca, now under suspicion, is racked with guilt over the decisions that led to her son’s disappearance, and tormented by the judgment of others: "You bought what? A wetsuit? Why in the world? What sort of mother? How much wine did you drink?" For Rebecca, “every outcome was unwhisperable.” “Gone” is a charged narrative that propels you forward, heart in your throat, and a moving, intimate look at life’s struggles toward grace and a kind of redemption.
Shattered Heart : The Heart of Christmas Series
Patti Stafford
She plans to start the new year off as a full-time career woman.What she doesn’t expect is for her brother’s friend, Kyle, to show up and steal her heart. But, after a bad breakup, can she ever trust another man with her heart?Kyle is charming, mature and well-mannered, too good to be true. Will her shattered heart find healing or does she risk having it shattered again?
A Force for Justice: The Maurice McCabe Story
Michael Clifford - 2017
However, over the following eight years, he exposed gross incompetence and corruption within An Garda Siochána. It ranged from a violent criminal being free to murder, to country-wide corruption in the policing of road safety.Along the way he paid a terrible price, enduring vilification, bullying and harassment by forces who wanted to silence him and his inconvenient truths. Worse still were the rumours of an extreme nature, which had a devastating effect on his whole family.McCabe's actions ultimately led to some of the biggest reforms of An Garda Siochána since the foundation of the state, caused major political upheaval, and culminated in a Tribunal established in 2017, to examine whether there had been a smear campaign against him within the force.A Force For Justice reveals the story behind the scenes, of one man struggling to survive in the most challenging of circumstances. It is a dramatic account of a garda sergeant's journey from a rural outpost into the heart of the Irish political and legal system.
The Night of the Party
Rachael English - 2018
By the end of the night, the parish priest, Father Leo Galvin, is dead.The lives of four teenagers - Tom, Conor, Tess and Nina - who had been drinking beer and smoking in a shed at the back of the house, will never be the same. But one of them carries a secret from that night that he has never shared. The friends go on to lead very different, separate lives - some quiet, others in the media spotlight - but the four remain connected by what happened during the time of the big snow.As the thirty-fifth anniversary of Father Galvin's murder approaches, Conor, now a senior police officer, becomes obsessed with the crime his father failed to solve. He believes that Tom can help identify Father Galvin's killer. But does Tom wish to break his silence? His dilemma draws the four friends back together, forcing them to question their lives and to confront their differences. But only Tom can decide whether Kilmitten's secret will finally be revealed.