mb palaver

BookPalaver: Irish Book Day, and other things Irish and Bookish

It's that time of year again, when you could be walking out of the Metro or into a coffee shop, minding your own business, and someone will hand you a free book.  And not ask for a donation or if you've been saved.  Solas Nua is holding it's 4th annual Irish Book Day tomorrow, March 17.  Given the generally appalling way St. Patrick's Day is marked in many places around this fine country of ours (just ask anyone who was in Hoboken for the St. Patrick's Day parade two weeks ago), I find Irish Book Day a very nice tradition.  According to Solas Nua, this year’s books will include titles by Colum McCann, Colm Toibin, Anne Enright, Alf MacLochlainn, Brigid Brophym, Chris Agee and Brian Lynch (who will be reading from his novel, The Winner of Sorrow, at the Arts Club of Washington on March 31).

For another option Tuesday night that's a bit less cerebral, Solas Nua and Washington Improv Theater are jointly offering "Craicdown!  A Hooley of Epic Proportions" night at the Source Theatre (1835 14th Street, NW), for $15, with a reception following.  Here's what you can expect:

Scenes from Solas Nua's 2008 hit Trad will be reprised complete with live music, the O'Danny Girls will perform their signature bawdy songs, and WIT will give us an improvised wake and a Limerick chain. Plus mash ups of Solas and WIT actors, a So you think you're Irish? quiz, Irish accent and Riverdance contests and much more! Start working on your Michael Flatley mullet and get ready to join in the fun.

You can buy tickets in advance here.  Finally, Solas Nua's production of Pumpgirl, a play by young Irish playwright Abbie Spallen, is running through March 22 at Flashpoint (916 G Street, NW).

* * * * *

Speaking of Irish literature, on the way home from work tonight I heard R.L. Stine, author of the children's book series Goosebumps, begin an essay in NPR's "You Must Read This" series with the following:

Every once in a while, I read a sentence or paragraph in a book that is so lyrical, so well-crafted — so shockingly perfect — that I have to stop reading and take a short break. I'll blink a few times, and then read the words again.

I thought, exactly!  That's why I'm the second slowest reader on the planet!   (I defer to  Dubliner for first place.)  Even better, he went on to say "This happened to me on page after page of Sebastian Barry's heartbreaking World War I novel, A Long Long Way."  Sebastian Barry is a wonderful author, and A Long Long Way, one of my very favorite books.   You can read (or listen to) the rest of Stine's essay on NPR's website.  He quotes his son, a music producer, as saying about the book that "It's not like reading a novel.  There's music on every page."  When I wrote about it in 2006 I described it (quoting Barry out of context) as "a singing book."  So between the two of us it must be true.

Photo courtesy of Solas Nua.

BookPalaver: The Secret Scripture

A couple of years ago I raved about the novel A Long, Long Way by the extraordinary Irish author Sebastian Barry. His latest book, The Secret Scripture, would also be an excellent gift for fiction lovers on your Christmas list. The story alternates between the memoirs of Roseanne McNulty, 100 years old and living in a mental asylum in the west of Ireland, and of the doctor who treats her. This is a serious Irish novel, so it should come as no surprise that the story Roseanne tells is tragic and, at times, profoundly sad. At one point she recounts an event that her father unwittingly precipitated that is so horrible I thought I don't know how a human being could possibly go on living after that. I turned the page, and it got worse. Merry Christmas!

But really, it's an engaging and beautifully told story. It deals with history, and the unreliability of memory. It would be a good choice for book clubs, because it's the kind of book you want to mull over with someone the moment you finish it. (Can you mull with someone, or is it a solitary act?) It's in the Politics and Prose holiday newsletter, which means members can buy it for 20% off through the end of the year.

BookPalaver: Holiday Books (with Optional Pizza)

If you've got books on your holiday shopping list, or need to buy Christmas cards, you can get 20% off most everything in the store at the Politics and Prose holiday member sale this weekend, December 5-7. An annual membership costs $20 (it's $50 for three years), and in addition to three member sales a year includes 20% off all books mentioned in the events calendar for that month and 20% off books on the P&P hardcover fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists.  You can pick up some gift ideas from their holiday newsletter, and most titles in it are 20% off for members through the end of the year.  For more book ideas, check out The New York Times for their 2008 lists of 100 Notable Books, 10 Best Books, and Notable Children's Books of 2008.

If you make it up to Politics and Prose, you can grab a pizza, a beer, and a paddle at Comet Ping Pong just up the block.  Here's an excerpt from Tom's review:

My vote for the most entertaining pizza parlor in the city goes to this spinoff of (and neighbor to) Buck's Fishing & Camping in upper Northwest Washington, which fuses its name from an old liquor store sign and a table tennis theme. Inside is a maze of green tables painted to look like Ping-Pong surfaces; Comet's white globes could pass for giant Ping-Pong balls. And way in the back, past the igloo-shaped pizza oven, await a jukebox and actual Ping-Pong tables for playing between sips of beer and bites of pizza. . . . . But the pies are what drive me here, particularly those topped with crunchy greens, fresh ricotta and black olives; mushrooms, gouda, bacon and soft onions (a.k.a. "The Smoky"); or, this being the mid-Atlantic, soft-shell crabs, leeks and fresh thyme. Whatever your pick, the base is thin, crisp, a little chewy and, like all good crusts, good enough to eat on its own.

Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
(202) 364-1919
(800) 722-0790

Comet Ping Pong
5037 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington DC 20008
(202) 364-0404

tvPalaver: Lynley and Havers' Last (BBC) Case

Tonight and next Sunday PBS will air the last two BBC productions of "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries." Sadly for fans of the show, the BBC pulled the plug on the series after this one.  I've enjoyed the TV series for a couple of years, but on the recommendation of my mother and mysterywriter I started reading the novels about six months ago. I feared I'd have to tape these episodes and hold them until I get to the later of Elizabeth George's novels, but as far as I can tell these episodes, "Limbo" and "Know Thine Enemy," not to mention a bunch of other filmed versions, were based only on Elizabeth George's characters, not on specific books.  That's a relief, because it could take me a year to get through the rest of the books.  It's all a bit confusing, not least because the PBS Mystery! series is calling this Series VII, though it seems the BBC called it Series VI.  And PBS will be re-airing Season VI (PBS's Series VI, that is) on four Sundays beginning August 24.

Be sure to check your local listings for times.  Here in DC, it doesn't seem WETA is airing it tonight, and it's not coming on MPT until 10:30 p.m., though it can be found in its usual 9 p.m. slot on PBSHD (if you get that).  I am a bit late on this programming note, but for those who don't check mbpalaver every five minutes for updates, you can always count on PBS to repeat during the week. See all episodes in the DC market this week here. 

THE INSPECTOR LYNLEY MYSTERIES:  SERIES VII

Two 90-minute mysteries — Sundays, August 10 and August 17, 2008
Six years after their debut, it's time to say goodbye to novelist Elizabeth George's seemingly mismatched partners — the dashing blueblood Thomas Lynley, eighth Earl of Asherton (Nathaniel Parker), and his working-class sidekick, Barbara Havers (Sharon Small). In Series VII, the celebrated New Scotland Yard duo collaborate on two final cases.

Episodes of THE INSPECTOR LYNLEY MYSTERIES: SERIES VII:

Episodes of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: Series VII:

• August 10, 2008
  Limbo
  As Lynley still struggles with a great personal tragedy, he's drawn back in to the 15-year-old unsolved abduction of his godson. A second shock occurs, and this time Lynley is at the center of the investigation. Can Lynley's name be cleared?

• August 17, 2008
  Know Thine Enemy
  Lynley and Havers try to solve the murder of one girl and the disappearance of another. Is a serial killer on the loose? What is the mother of one of the girls hiding? And who is the mysterious redhead seen with both girls before they disappeared?

BookPalaver: Happy Bloomsday!

It's Bloomsday again, and whether you're in New York or anywhere with an Internet connection, here are a few ways to mark the event:  attend a reading at Symphony Space in New York (95th and Broadway) at 7 pm, listen to its live webcast, tune in to WBAI (99.5 FM) in New York for its offering of Joyce readings, or listen to its live webcast, from 7 pm to 4 am.  This program will also be heard on many Pacifica-affiliated radio stations.  The New York Times describes the events as follows (read the full article for why the theater and radio productions are going their separate ways this year).

In the Symphony Space production Stephen Colbert and Frank and Malachy McCourt will read from the novel’s Ithaca episode. Then after a musical interlude by the soprano Judith Kellock, the event will conclude with a reading by Fionnula Flanagan of the book’s ending episode, Molly Bloom’s drifting nighttime thoughts.

WBAI’s broadcast will also feature the Molly Bloom monologue, read by the Irish actress Caraid O’Brien. Other performers will include Alec Baldwin and Anne Meara. The radio production will present a range of works by Joyce but concentrate on what its producers called “the holy trinity of characters in ‘Ulysses’: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife, Molly.”

Or watch the abbreviated version of Ulysses I wrote about last year and couldn't resist posting again.  To show Joyce in a rare moment of underconfidence, here's the note he wrote to Nora Barnacle, his future wife whom he first walked out with on July 16, 1904, after she had once stood him up:

60 Shelbourne Road

I may be blind.  I looked for a long time at a head of reddish-brown hair and decided it was not yours.  I went home quite dejected.  I would like to make an appointment but it might not suit you.  I hope you will be kind enough to make one with me — if you have not forgotten me!

James A Joyce

15 June 1904

BookPalaver: Solas Nua Book Club Reads Tenderwire

Solas Nua, the group that promotes contemporary Irish arts in DC and was behind Irish Book Day in March, holds monthly book club meetings at James Hoban's Irish pub in Dupont Circle.  Next Monday, June 9, they will discuss Claire Kilroy's novel, Tenderwire.  If you're a regular reader you know how much I loved Tenderwire -- in  fact, it was the subject of my very first post.  As if that weren't honor enough, last year it was nominated for the Irish Novel of the Year Award.  Solas Nua's website says that drop-ins are welcome.  You can sign up for information on the book club here.  (Darn -- I missed the May meeting re William Trevor's Cheating at Canasta:  Stories.  Note to self:  do a post about William Trevor.)

The photo above, taken two weeks ago in Paris, shows mysterywriter pointing out the shelf space devoted to Claire's two novels, Tenderwire and All Summer, at Shakespeare & Company, the tiny Left Bank book store (or its successor) made famous by its one-time proprietor Sylvia Beach and her work to get James Joyce's Ulysses published.

Solas Nua Book Club

Tenderwire
by Claire Kilroy
Date: Monday, June 9^th
Time: 7pm
James Hoban's Irish Restaurant & Bar
1 Dupont Cir NW
(South side at New Hampshire Ave.)
Washington D.C.  20036

BookPalaver: Ted Sorensen at Politics & Prose

Ted Sorensen, JFK's close advisor and speechwriter, will read from his new book, Counselor:  A Life at the Edge of Mystery, this Wednesday, May 14, at 7 p.m. at Politics & Prose.  As with any author event, the book will be discounted 20% for members during the month of May.  If anyone goes, and Mr. Sorenson takes questions, please ask him about the nature of his rhetorical style, which is my Achilles Heel when trying to crack cryptoquotes.  I can crack nearly every quote within 30 or 60 seconds, but certain quotes elude me, and 9 out of 10 of those turn out to be Kennedy's.  (I would ask him this myself, but there's no need to display my nerd bravado quite so publicly.)

Here are the publisher's comments:

In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history.

Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book "Profiles in Courage," Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions--from a failed bid for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the President.

Sorensen describes in thrilling detail his experience advising JFK during some of the most crucial days of his presidency, from the decision to go to the moon to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when JFK requested that the thirty-four-year-old Sorensen draft the key letter to Khrushchev at the most critical point of the world's first nuclear confrontation. After Kennedy was assassinated, Sorensen stayed with President Johnson for a few months before leaving to write a biography of JFK. In 1968 he returned to Washington to help run Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Through it all, Sorensen never lost sight of the ideals that brought him to Washington and to the White House, working tirelessly to promote and defend free, peaceful societies.

Illuminating, revelatory, and utterly compelling, "Counselor" is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known.

BookPalaver: Politics and Prose Member Sale This Weekend

Does Mom have a book on her Mother's Day wish list?  Politics and Prose is holding one of its member sales this weekend, May 2 to 4.  Members will get 20% off all books, cards, and gifts, 15% off CDs, and 10% off DVDs.  Spend $50 or more and receive a complimentary recycled plastic tote bag.  It doesn't get more PC than that.

A one-year membership costs $20.

Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
(202) 364-1919

BookPalaver: Irish Book Day

Free Irish books appearing out of nowhere:  it's the next best thing to money growing on trees.  Solas Nua (which NorthernOutlaw tells me means New Light), a group that promotes contemporary Irish arts in DC, will be celebrating St. Patrick's Day by distributing Irish literature for free throughout the DC area.  This is the third annual Irish Book Day, but this is the first year they are distributing the books in public spaces.  Solas Nua says:  "If you come across a copy it is yours to keep or pass along as you wish. So keep an eye out on your metro commute or in your morning coffee shop – you might just be one of the lucky people to pick up a book."  See It, Read It.  And if you find one, let me know!

Solas Nua is also hosting an evening with Irish author Colum McCann on Wednesday night, March 19, 6:30 to 8:30 at the Arts Club of Washington (2017 I Street, NW).  Admission is free, and details can be found here.

tvPalaver: Pride and Prejudice, in 3 parts

Don't forget: tomorrow (Sunday) night at 9 your local PBS station will air the first of three episodes of the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, starring the delightful Jennifer Ehle and charming Colin Firth as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.  This is good news for those of us stranded at home by meniscus surgery.  This might even be a good time to reread the book.

If you're taping, note that these episodes run two hours each (whereas the prior installments in The Complete Jane Austen series have been running an hour and a half).  Ninety minutes seemed awfully short for Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park, which felt rushed (pity mysterywriter, who watched Mansfield Park with me and had to answer a dozen questions about who was who).