James Howard Kunstler is an entertainingly cranky writer based in the upstate New York town of Saratoga Springs. He is inordinately fond of the adjective ‘necrotic’ when describing the contemporary American landscape, he maintains a blog with the somewhat no-holds-barred title of Clusterfuck Nation, and has just written a book that predicts that many of […]

There’s a pretty nausea-inducing article about the influence of the super-rich in the recent edition of New York magazine (not to be confused with The New Yorker, which usually affects a patrician disdain for the discussion of moolah). Anyway the gist of the obsequious piece is that the ultra rich may provoke envy, may be […]

In the bookshop the other day I saw a book called Hitler’s Piano Player. While I don’t doubt that the book is well researched etc., the title alone seemed like an unintentional satirical jibe at the Hitler industry. In a few years (unless they’ve already appeared of course), the barrel will doubtlessly be further scraped […]

An article about the Chinese labour force, of all things, has not just made me further question the ambiguous legacy of John Paul II but the whole relationship between “goodness” on the individual level and well-being on the mass level. The article, which appeared earlier this week in the New York Times, suggested that: The […]

Twenty minutes ago I saw the headline “Author Saul Bellow Dies at 89.” Paradoxically, his age and the length of his career* made his demise all the more startling–he seemed like such a fixture in the literary firmament that the issue of his mortality somehow seemed beside the point. But in the days to come […]

In case you feel your accommodation lacks that dignified whiff of slowly decaying paper, the following event in Dublin may answer your needs: Trinity Secondhand BooksaleThe 16th Trinity Secondhand Booksale will commence on Thursday 7th April at 5.30pm in the Exam Hall, Front Square (Admission �3.00). An auction of rare books will be held that […]

Marilynne Robinson isn’t exactly a prolific author. Since 1981 she’s published four books: two novels, a book of nonfiction on the nuclear industry in the UK, and a collection of essays. However, her first novel, Housekeeping, is acknowledged as an “American classic.” (I’m not sure if that accolade is a guarantor of excellence–I’ve just finished […]

The extensive, some might say endless, coverage of the Pope’s passing has focused on the fortitude of the man facing pain and death. These discussions of the Pontiff’s suffering usually include reflections on how faith has provided solace, that the knowledge of an eternal afterlife makes the transient pain bearable. While there’s no gainsaying this […]

Way back in the mists of time (December 2004 actually), I was using this very space to bitch about the Department of Transport for failing to reply to a blustering e-mail I had sent two weeks previously.* At the time I thought it was a particularly futile demand, asking someone in authority to explain how […]

One of the more irritating aspects of Ian McEwan’s novel, Saturday (which I discussed last Saturday), was the rather overblown meditations of the protagonist, Henry Perowne, on the fragility of Western civilization in the face of fundamentalist terror. As he drives through the London streets, he can’t help but think that this affluent tranquility could […]