CRITICAL MASS | BOOKS
2020
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2020
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“I chose this just because she’s Edna O’Brien and this book is extraordinary. It’s set in Nigeria and the main character is a girl who’s abducted by Boko Haram. She’s a teenager who is taken from her school and made the wife of one of the fighters. It’s her story and the story of the horrific things that happen to her, and then what happens when all these girls are liberated. And also, how she may or not be readjusted into her own society, and how people accept her or don’t. It’s all about Nigeria, but
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4. Girl– Edna O’Brien
Rick is currently reading Emer McBride’s forthcoming novella Strange Hotel and has just finished Eoin Colfer’s Highfire, an adult fantasy involving a sweary, alcoholic dragon who lives in the Louisiana Bayou, due out in the new year. Like us all, he has more books than he can ever read. Therefore, he requests that if anyone fancies buying him a Christmas present, they make a donation to his book club’s appeal in aid of the Peter McVerry Trust at idonate.ie/ bookclub.
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“Rónán is better known as Mumblin’ Deaf Ro, who was nominated for the Choice Music Prize a couple of times. It’s his first novel, from a small UK publisher, but it’s appeared on best book lists throughout the year. It did manage to get nominated for the Irish Book Awards and it’s an incredibly gentle, simple story, again of two guys of a certain age. But these guys are almost the opposite of Kevin Barry’s characters. They are normal, lovely people with perfectly ordinary jobs, and one of them lives with his Mammy. It’s a gentle kind of love letter to the nature of friendship between men without any of the drama.”
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“The last one is non-fiction. Emma is from Rialto, and Emma is black, so she kind of stood out growing up. She lives in the UK these days; she’s an academic who also does TV shows for BBC4. This book is about the nature of having hair when you’re black and what it means culturally. But there’s everything from that all the way up to the use of fractal maths in Africa, and their origins there, and how they come from hair design. It’s completely eye-opening and obviously a world I do not belong in, and yet she writes so compellingly that I found myself getting dragged in. She tells an amazing story.”
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3. Leonard and Hungry Paul – Rónán Hession
5. Don’t Touch My Hair – Emma Dabiri
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as it’s Edna, you can read a lot of other things into it. You could very easily read it as a parable of Irish life at a certain time as well. A lot of what happens to her, particularly in the early stages, are not easy things to read so you’d need to gird your stomach for it.”
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sitting in the port of Algeciras, waiting for a daughter who may be going in or coming out on a ferry from Tangier, they’re not 100% sure. They sit, talking a bit about their past, and there are flashbacks to that past in Cork. I was dying for this book to show up, and it’s a three-course meal in terms of how beautifully it’s written.”
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO SUCCEED IN THE ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS
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“EMMA DABIRI WRITES SO COMPELLINGLY… SHE TELLS AN AMAZING STORY.”
IN MUSIC & MEDIA
Meet The Key Players
IRELAND €24.95 U.K £19.95
Available in selected news agents nationwide or online at hotpress.com
• Rick O’Shea hosts The Book Club, Sundays at 7pm on Radio 1.
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