- 2020: Book 40
A gorgeous book with some interesting facts - a good introduction to the topic.
- 2020: Book 39
Although it was a fairly easy read - the book filled with personal anecdotes - it had some weighty ideas.
I feel like I need to read it again with my highlighter and pencil in tow to properly absorb and apply his 'rules'.
Quite thought provoking in any case.
- ★★☆☆☆
You should never judge a book by it’s cover, but your expectations going into this one might be very different depending on whether you’ve seen the UK or US one.
The British version features a woman’s face, and this novel is ostensibly about a woman. Two late-middle-aged men pub crawl around Dublin as one tells the other the story of how he’s left his wife for a girl they both loved-at-first-sight in their youths. In reality, the love that actually comes through is a love for Irish speech, and pubs, and the men for each other.
The American cover is a picture of a pint, and is styled to look like a continuation of Roddy Doyle’s Two Pints series, which is probably a better angle to come from. Love is also written almost entirely in — simply brilliant — dialogue.
It’s astute, and sensitive and funny, but in all honestly also frustrating and a little boring. As one character constantly hectors the other to get on with the story, you kinda wish he would.