Chilling

In a highly politicised world, Older Brother is a painfully intense tour de force of fractured hearts and minds. An outstanding novel that is chilling in its capacity to foretell violence, and anxious in its observation of how hardships and marginalisation are propagated amongst hard-working and under-appreciated people. What seems, just,…

Kevin Barry believes in an economy of words. I love the concept and Barry has embraced it to the core for this novel. As a college professor, I constantly pushed this on my students, who thought more was better. I recently saw Barry (July 2019) in Armagh, Northern Ireland,…

Guilt 

The Kite Runner is an emotional and immersive story of friendship that is amplified with its spotlight on society and culture within Afganistan – both past and present. The story relates to the lives of two boys, Amir and Hassan, growing up in Kabul and narrated through the eyes of…

Duality

The Tiger’s Wife is an outstanding ambitious book of depth and meaning that draws links between a troubled aftermath in a war-torn region with the backdrop of superstition and myths. There is a theme adopted throughout the book that opposing positions are regularly confronted, such as modern technology and medicine,…