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Tag Archives: James Joyce

(Re)building a library

Friday, May 21, 2021

Confessions of a bibliomaniac in the South Atlantic. — For The Critic

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Alan Hollinghurst, Amazon, Angela Carter, Antarctica, Anthony Burgess, Anthony Farrar-Hockley, Antoine de St Exupéry, Bernard MacLaverty, Bernard Malamud, books, bookshopping, Brendan Whittington-Jones, Charing Cross Rd, charity shops, Charlotte McConaghy, Christopher Hitchens, Covid-19, Damon Runyan, Daniel Defoe, Dave Bentley, Don DeLillo, Flann O'Brien, FOPP, Freya Stark, Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Geoff Dyer, George Melly, Goethe, Google Maps, Gore Vidal, Graham Greene, Graham Swift, Harold Nicolson, Henry Kissinger, Ian Fleming, Jack Grimwood, James Clammer, James Hilton, James Kelman, James Meek, Jared Diamond, Jerome K Jerome, JG Ballard, JG Farrell, Jim Crace, John Julius Norwich, John le Carré, John Steinbeck, Joseph O'Connor, Jules Verne, Kurt Vonnegut, Laurence Sterne, libraries, Maria Stepanova, Michael Blencowe, Milan Kundera, Mordecai Richler, museums, Oxfam, Patricia Highsmith, Penelope Lively, Peter Høeg, Philip Roth, Rabelais, Richard Flanagan, Rupert Everett, Salman Rushdie, Schopenhauer, Seth Burkett, Shalom Auslander, Sri Lanka, The Critic, the Falklands, the Lonely Planet, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Keneally, Thomas Mann, TS Eliot, Umberto Eco, Uruguay, William Faulkner, William Golding, William Thackeray | Comments (0)

Quaker lives matter

Friday, June 5, 2020

A tribute to my somewhat improbable Quaker ancestors, murdered/martyred on this day, at Scullabogue, in 1798. — For The Critic

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey, crime, Daniel Gahan, death, Dr Thomas Hancock, family, George Cruickshank, Ireland, John Jones, Kilbraney, New Ross, Oliver Cromwell, Quakerism, religion, RF Foster, Samuel Jones, Scullabogue, The Critic, Thomas Cloney, Thomas Keightley, Tom Dunne, Ulster, United Irishmen, Wexford | Comments (0)

Ducks and cover

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann Galley Beggar Press, £14.99, pp1020 . Why, I asked some months back, in these pages, do the protagonists in American fiction these days seem so lost? What is it they’re all so het up about? Well… everything. At least according to the narrator of Ducks, Newburyport. Lucy Ellmann’s monster novel […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged 4th of July, actors, Americans, boarlets, Booker Prize, brandnames, burial mounds, clickbait, death, ducks, engineering, facts, first world problems, FOOSH injuries, Galley Beggar Press, geography, Gilbert & Sullivan, guns, health, homework, Laura Ingalls Wilder, lists, Lucy Ellmann, lyrics, memory, mothers, movies, names, Newburyport, novels, Ohio, Philip Glass, pies, presidents, Revere Ware, Schubert, Shakespeare, shopping, Spectator, styptic sticks, the Amish, the Midwest, trauma, Umberto Eco, wallpaper, women, wordplays, YouTube | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, July 29, 2019

. Leather trunks were used in Rome as early as the time of Caesar. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Friday, September 28 1906 . Tilda Swinton has been elected leader of the Liberal Democrats. The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour began outside a kebab shop in Kent. The complete works of James Joyce are available for £0.75. ‘Twirly’ […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged air travel, books, California, cats, coffee, construction, Devon, emotions, Ethiopia, garlic, George Best, George III, horticulture, hygiene, India, Ireland, Julius Caesar, kebabs, Kent, Kew, leather, Nelson Evening Mail, Rome, satire, sex, Søren Kierkegaard, The Beatles, the Liberal Democrats, Tilda Swinton, World Tiger Day, YouTube | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, May 13, 2019

. Thomas King was fined 12s, or eight days’ hard labour, at the Thames Police Court for intoxication. While in this state he asked a pawnbroker to advance 2s on a baby. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Wednesday, April 10 1907 . There are 2000 non-functioning satellites in space. Lord Reith did not want people to enjoy […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Aethelred the Unready, America, anatomy, babies, Ceylon, crime, drink, education, Indians, jungles, Lord Reith, money, Nelson Evening Mail, Panama, radio, religion, seafood, shipping, space, tea, the Japanese, war | Comments (0)

My father helps correct a Work In Progress

Saturday, May 4, 2019

p6 aufroofs p15 febrew- wery p20 rub– brickredd p34a as a pious p34b ing the intimate nature of this, a first offence in vert or venison which was admittedly an incautious but, at its wildest, a partial ex- ing the intimate nature of this, a first offence in vert or venison p37 ildiot repeated p45 ………..[Balbaccio, […]

Filed in Non-fictions | Also tagged corrigenda, Faber, fathers, Found poetry, handwriting, manuscripts, typos, work in progress | Comments (0)

Portrait of a ‘lady’ – Constance Markievicz, by Sarah Purser

Friday, November 30, 2018

Tonight, the Irish journalist Mary Kenny has a play on at the Irish Cultural Centre. Entitled Dearest Old Darling, it’s based on letters sent between the Dublin feminist, socialist, communist, Sinn Fein MP (elect, but never sitting) Constance Markievicz – née Gore-Booth – and her sister Eva. My great-great-great-aunt, Sarah Purser, portraitist, landscape artist, and […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Académie Julian, air travel, An Túr Gloine, aristocracy, bathing, Brendan Behan, burglary, Communism, Constance Markievicz, Count Casimir Markievicz, Douglas Hyde, Dublin, Elizabeth Coxhead, Eva Gore-Booth, exploration, feminism, France, Georgina Gore-Booth, grandmothers, Guinness, Huguenots, Ireland, Jack Yeats, John Butler Yeats, John O'Grady, Kathleen Kearney, Lady Gregory, landlords, letters, Lissadell, Mary Kenny, Maud Gonne, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery of Ireland, Oliver Gogarty, painting, politics, portraits, religion, Roger Casement, Rome, Royal Dublin Society, Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts, Sarah Purser, Sinn Fein, Sir Henry Gore-Booth, Sligo, socialism, stained glass, the Arctic, the British, the Irish Cultural Centre, theatre, Yeats | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, January 23, 2017

. Omnibuses in Holland are fitted with letter-boxes. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 13 1908 . A ‘havelock’ is the flap of cloth that hangs down from a soldier’s kepi, to protect the neck. Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th president of the United States drew bigger crowds to Washington DC than any previous inauguration. The […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged anatomy, army, cards, Donald Trump, Duff Cooper, education, Giles Coren, hats, health, Holland, Jeffrey Bernard, Jim Norton, music, novels, otters, post, Pratt's, Rhodes, Spectator, The Times, Tunbridge Wells, Washington, WW2 | Comments (0)