Ardal O’Hanlon’s holiday bookclub
With the thrilling prospect of a staycation summer ahead, actor and comedian Ardal O’Hanlon recommends five books to pack for your next holiday
I’m never quite sure what sort of books to pack for my holidays especially now during a pandemic when concentration levels are low.
Should I bring a fun and caustic thriller like one of the Slow Horses series by Mick Herron or is it finally time to tackle that Dostoevsky novel gathering dust on my bookshelves? Of course, given the novelty of being allowed to explore the country, I might be too giddy to read anything at all.
That said, I’m recommending some books that have given me pleasure and solace in recent months. As a fiction aficionado, I’ve surprised myself by picking some non-fiction options - a couple of memoirs and a history book - possibly because they’re easier to dip in and out of.
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
This offbeat memoir by one of the most original and perceptive writers in the Twitter-age is most notable for its humour.
It’s ostensibly about her father, a larger-than-life character who converted to Catholicism and became a priest, but it’s really about her own fraught journey to becoming a writer.
It’s always surprising and every page is littered with brilliant laugh out loud jokes.
I Wanna be Yours by John Cooper Clark
Another amusing memoir, the singular punk-poet has a lovely turn of phrase and a great eye for detail.
Not only does he sketch out his formative years in Manchester and his niche career, he keenly appraises the music, fashion and popular culture of the era, and frankly and unapologetically deals with his own heroin addiction.
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
This is one of the best novels by an emerging Irish writer that I read last year. The narrator is a lonely and bored teacher of English in Hong Kong in an unsatisfying semi relationship with a self-absorbed banker.
A fresh and wry voice, Dolan teases out - with humour and pithy observation - some of the nuances of the gender and identity issues of the day without being overly judgemental.
The Anarchy by William Dalrymple
Cards on the table, I am an anglophile but in desperately trying to understand Brexit, and the exceptionalism that seems to be at the root of the various crisis facing Britain today, I turned to history during lockdown.
Slave Empire by Padraic X Scanlan and Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera were both damning indictments of Britain’s ignoble adventures but by far the most thorough and thoroughly entertaining history I came across was The Anarchy.
It’s about the rapaciousness of the East India Company.
There’s no arguing with Dalrymple’s expertise and authority as he exposes the greed and barbarity of the EIC, the standard-bearer of global capitalism.
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Another timely novel, this is about the black experience in America. It’s pacy and powerfully funny, written in a Pynchonesque streamof-consciousness style. Don’t be fooled. The humour and wildly imaginative set-pieces don’t quite conceal the anger and frustration of the various characters.
It goes without saying that the above list would be completely different if I was asked again in an hour’s time. What? No room for Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, or Mike McCormack’s The Solar
Bones? Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room or the Rachel Cusk trilogy?
Decisions. Decisions. At this rate there’ll be no room in the case for the swimming togs.