Life in Books

With Noel Cunningham

Black Beauty Anna Sewell

This was my first book. It was gifted to me when very young by Miss Cunningham, the primary school teacher at my local school in County Donegal. It appealed to me in every way. It grabbed the romance of idyllic days on a farm and the whole carefree life I was then experiencing as a child growing up in rural Ireland. I was that colt! I often reflected on that story years later while in London, the carefree days gone, hard work and all the challenges I faced were in complete step with the story of that young colt. Again the romance and the spirit of humankind are reflected and the wonderment and joy I felt as a child when Black Beauty returned to happy retirement in the country. I now see that it is almost autographical and my story hopefully will finish in a similar vein with a happy retirement in Donegal!

The Brothers Karamazov Dostoyevsky

At Rockwell, a teacher, one of the few lay teachers, seeing my love of English, decided I should read this book. Read, well, that was one word for it, but I found this the most challenging thing I ever did in my life. I always strive to achieve and please and as a young person I did not want to disappoint this teacher. The young coarse man, Fyodor Pavlovich, was anathema to my way of thinking people should be. This was a tragedy based on a father and his sons and it was also a tragedy for me as it nearly put me off reading for life. I will re-visit and see if, as a much older man, I can somehow grapple with some of the issues this incredibly sad book examines.

The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough

Yes, the big novel and a great holiday read. The frisson of illicit romance on the part of the heroine. A blockbuster set in early 1900s Australia at a remote sheep station and the travails of the Cleary Family, it’s just a great book. I have recommended it to many and my own well-thumbed edition has been passed around to so many of my, mostly female, friends. Everyone fell in love with Fr Ralph… including myself!

The Miniaturist Jessie Burton

Jessie Burton’s amazing novel grabbed my interest, attention, and intrigue from the first sentence. I could not leave it down. This debut novel set in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century was magnificently written, very different and certainly touched deeply on many emotional levels. Glittering wealth and oppressive religion made for a novel trembling with mystery and suspense. I loved the research and whilst hard to understand at times for me, it ranks as one of the all-time great books. The heroine is just that… a real heroine!

Soundings

My reading was helped greatly by my Leaving Cert year. I discovered Soundings which was the poetry collection on the syllabus. It opened my eyes to beautiful words, the magic of seeing beauty and expressing it with haunting lines and rhyming couplets. It was here I discovered Shakespeare and who could not be moved? “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day.” “When to the sessions of sweet silent thought.” Such opening lines draw one into some of the most beautiful words ever written. I will eventually, when I retire, read all of his 154 sonnets. As for his plays, magical. I quote The Merchant of Venice and those lovely messages that make us reflect on life and acceptance and inclusion frequently.

Everything by Maeve Binchy

For sheer storytelling, an Irish setting without too much shamrock and shillelagh, Ms Binchy is hard to beat. I have read many of her books … and certainly everyone should have holiday reads as opposed to serious reads

Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management

What can I say? Etiquette and manners, it’s right up my street!