'FUNNIEST YET!' IRISH EXAMINER A love affair born in rural Ireland! Two mismatched lovers, locked in a relationship that will change both of them . . . forever! Ross O'Carroll-Kelly was brought up to believe that Gaelic games were invented for people too stupid to understand the laws of rugby. Little did he know that one day he would become a legend of Kerry football. But then, his life has taken a lot of unexpected twists and turns. His father is the Taoiseach of the country. His wife is an actual Government Minister. And his suddenly teenage daughter is heading for the Gaeltacht - and her very first rugby boyfriend. And then there's Marianne . . . Of course, Ross was too busy becoming a Gaelic football star to realise that his family - like the entire country - was being pushed towards a cliff edge. And he was the only man capable of saving Ireland's democracy. Which is just like, 'Fooooooock!' __________________________ 'I hope this series runs for decades' BELFAST TELEGRAPH 'Ross is a national institution' IRISH TIMES
Reading Paul Howard: The Art of Ross O’Carroll Kelly offers a thorough examination of narrative devices, satirical modes, cultural context and humour, in Howard’s texts. The volume argues that his academic critical neglect is due to a classic bifurcation in Irish Studies between high and popular culture, and will use the thought of Pierre Bourdieu, Sigmund Freud, Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida to critique this division, building a theoretical platform from which to examine the significance of Howard’s work as an Irish comic and satirical writer. Addressing both the style and the substance of his work, this text locates him in a tradition of Irish satirical writing that dates back to the Gaelic bards, and includes writers like Swift, Wilde, Flann O’Brien and Joyce. Through textual and contextual analysis, this book makes the case for Howard as a significant and original voice in Irish writing, whose fusion of the three traditional types of satire (Horatian, Juvenalian and Menippean), has created a parallel Ireland that shines a satirical light on its real counterpart. As Freud suggests, humour is a way of accessing aspects of the psyche that normative discourses cannot enunciate, and Howard, through the confessional voice of Ross, offers a fictive truth on twenty years of Irish society, a truth that is not accessed by discourse in the public sphere or by what could be termed literary or high cultural fiction.
When your world of traditional assumptions is shaken where do you turn for inner peace and personal comfort? Considering Pascals wager, if there is no god and we disbelieve we have lost nothing, but if there is a god and we disbelieve we may have lost everything. But, what if there is no free will and we all must believe whatever we are given? That is the primary question that pushed this author into investigating what the world religions and philosophies taught about the existential puzzle called life. When my traditional faith failed to provide any comfort after untimely death of my wife I began searching for some belief I could live with, and this is what I was given. Many thinking people have rejected the mythical god of the Bible and the Quran but they have not found a suitable substitute. Since there is no proof for or against the existence of God, everyone must be agnostic or atheist if they will admit it. Perhaps it is time to replace the anthropomorphic god with one that really works. Not the god of the Bible or the Quran, but the prime force in the universe: Generator, Operator, Destroyer...G.O.D. The expanded and updated essays in the second edition of this book develop such a new theology.
Today there are approximately seventy-six million Americans who were born in the years from 1946 to 1965 the baby boomers. In their youth they thrived, voting for a number of entitlements based on assumptions of economic growth that no longer applies. Now, as baby boomers continue aging, they must face a number of potentially disheartening realities. From caring for ailing parents to funding their retirement to facing death, many issues weigh too heavily upon the minds of the baby boomer generation to allow for a peaceful, productive second half of life. What's more, many of the spiritual belief systems passed down for so many generations no longer provide the comfort or support people need in order to face the challenges of the later half of life. The people need something new. In this second edition of Baby Boomer Lamentations, author and self-proclaimed religious philosopher Lewis Tagliaferre explores the concept of Theofatalism and addresses the rising spiritual concerns of the baby boomers, offering a new outlook to help readers make the inevitable transitions through the later years of life.
Based upon the works of some of the worlds greatest thinkers, Lessons from Sedona: A Spiritual Pathway to Serenity and Contentment by author Lewis Tagliaferre, builds on the success of his first volume, Voices of Sedona. This new, comprehensive collection of essays is designed to teach the fundamental principles of Theofatalismthe belief that God runs everything in the universe from the smallest subatomic particle to the largest interstellar galaxy. The essays link the five principles developed in Voices of Sedona to contemporary issues in society and personal living including politics, science, religion, aging, history, and economics. Useful for both self-study and as lesson guides to be used in organized discussion groups, the essays show the world as it really is from many different perspectives. A comprehensive and formidable source on metaphysics and spirituality, Lessons from Sedona: A Spiritual Pathway to Serenity and Contentment provides a plethora of information for those interested in growing, changing, and transcending the limiting constrictions of consensus beliefs. It communicates humankinds unique place in time and space and their special role in the giant jigsaw puzzle of life.
In the year 2032, America is supposedly safe from terror, Iranian nuclear weaponry is no longer a threat, and the United Nations' treaties and technologies are keeping the peace. Then a suicide bomber targets Houston, Texas and a famous physicist is kidnapped. The ensuing search by a decorated U.S. Marine war hero and veteran of special ops, not only places the physicist's family in grave danger, but exposes an even more ominous threat to the country, moreso than any threat in its history.
A groundbreaking manifesto about what our nation’s top schools should be—but aren’t—providing: “The ex-Yale professor effectively skewers elite colleges, their brainy but soulless students (those ‘sheep’), pushy parents, and admissions mayhem” (People). As a professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students, some of the nation’s brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively and how to find a sense of purpose. Now he argues that elite colleges are turning out conformists without a compass. Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale’s admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to “practical” subjects like economics, students are losing the ability to think independently. It is essential, says Deresiewicz, that college be a time for self-discovery when students can establish their own values and measures of success in order to forge their own paths. He features quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and offering clear solutions on how to fix it. “Excellent Sheep is likely to make…a lasting mark….He takes aim at just about the entirety of upper-middle-class life in America….Mr. Deresiewicz’s book is packed full of what he wants more of in American life: passionate weirdness” (The New York Times).
From the highly acclaimed author of Bad Day in Blackrock – inspiration for the 2012 award-winning film What Richard Did, directed by Lenny Abrahamson... ? Shortlisted for the 2021 An Post Irish Book Awards Eason Novel of the Year... A darkly funny, gripping and profoundly moving novel about a life spinning out of control, a life live without the bedrock of familial love, and the corruption of material wealth that tears at the soul. ‘It was my father’s arrest that brought me here, although you could certainly say that I took the scenic route.’ Here is rehab, where Ben – the only son of a rich South Dublin banker – is piecing together the shattered remains of his life. Abruptly cut off, at the age of 27, from a life of heedless privilege, Ben flounders through a world of drugs and dead-end jobs, his self-esteem at rock bottom. Even his once-adoring girlfriend, Clio, is at the end of her tether. Then Ben runs into an old school friend who wants to cut him in on a scam: a shady property deal in the Balkans. The deal will make Ben rich and, at one fell swoop, will deliver him from all his troubles: his addictions, his father’s very public disgrace, and his own self-loathing and regret. Problems solved. But something is amiss. For one thing, the Serbian partners don’t exactly look like fools. (In fact they look like gangsters.) And, for another, Ben is being followed everywhere he goes. Someone is being taken for a ride. But who? Praise for White City: 'I can't recommend it enough' John Boyne 'Immensely enjoyable and tautly written' Sunday Times 'Spiky, blackly funny' Independent 'Both riotous rant and thoughtful coming-of-age tale' Dublin Review of Books 'Brilliantly entertaining' Literary Review 'Likely to be the most solid, well-rounded novel to come out of Ireland this year' Irish Independent 'This ambitious, attention-grabbing novel seems ripe for cinematic adaptation’ Daily Mail ‘Demands to be read’ Irish Times 'Power shows his own capacity for comic timing and pithy aperçus' Guardian 'One of the most purely enjoyable books' Peter Murphy, Arena (RTE Radio 1) 'A tremendously zesty and zeitgeisty piece of writing' Sunday Times (Ireland) ‘Fast-paced and wickedly funny’ Danielle McLaughlin 'Magnificent' Billy O'Callaghan 'Dark, hilarious and emotionally profound' Ed O'Loughlin '[A] biting page-turner' Business Post 'Funny, and gorgeously written, and just relentlessly entertaining' Mark O'Connell 'You'll laugh, you'll cry... Read it, read it, read it' Claire Hennessy 'Profound, unpretentious, unapologetically intelligent, and really hilarious' Lauren Oyler 'Brilliant' Eoin McNamee
