"Went to the bookstore and flipped through Finnegans Wake, yikes and double yikes, I don't think I'll dive into that."

Very wise.

"I bought a nice new copy of Ulysses."

You might also want to pick up:

Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses

by Don Gifford and Robert J. Seidman, and

The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses

by Harry Blamires

Round Ireland in Low Gear by Eric Newby...because all work and no play makes for no fun atall, atall.

To be fair Eric N was English but the book is one my favorite of his though the Hindu Kush or his wandering as a POW through Italy are probably better stories

Well, if you enjoy reading about misery, you should definitely dive into George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier. This is set in England, not Ireland, though. Nonfiction account of haves/have nots.

Aces above McCourt's maudlin, weepy, smarmy Angela's Ashes.

That's why I suggested Patrick MacGill. He describes real hardship with stoicism.

The best miserable book (although I found it uplifting) and could be set in Ireland (or anywhere for that matter) Cormac Macarthur's "The Road". Deserved all the prizes heaped on it but as yet, I have to find anyone I (personally) know who who actually liked it. I cant think of another book that describes so well the love between parent and child. I also read it as an anti-gun novel - but that may just be me.

Then as an antidote, "Around Ireland in a Fridge" - I cant remember the author and what's more I have never read it.

Cormac McCarthy, not MacArthur, wrote The Road.

His masterpiece is Blood Meridian.

Thin

Thin, I adore three books by George Orwell:

"The Road to Wigan Pier"
"Down and Out in London and Paris"
"Homage to Catalonia"

The last two informed me about things I never knew--and things I explored once abroad because of his writing.

The first informed me more about why my family came to America in the first decade of the century. My grandfather and his brothers came to Ellis Island from Wigan. The book also explained why he never went back, even to visit.

Wigan is NOT in Wales, but watch "How Green Was My Valley" and you can get a clue as to how our next generations identified with that movie. Our valleys in the USA were once green; they became orange quickly. Check out how many actors were of Irish descent in the movie, and you can totally get how we just made this a "this one cause was all our causes" connection.

George Orwell(actually Eric Arthur Blair), of course, was not from Ireland, but like you, I do view his writing to have the same sad flavor, a classic lament, that I pick up in Irish authors.

I find it ironic that he was writing at the same time as James Joyce in the SAME Paris neighborhood, only he never abused the wallet and energies of Sylvia Beach (Shakespeare and Company) the way Joyce did. Heck, even Hemingway, who was a total leech, never did what Joyce did.

My favorite contemporary writer from Ireland is Colm Tóibín, who also wrote about Catalonia with his "Homage to Barcelona". I am in total awe that in "The Master", he was able to envision the personality of Henry James.

<i>If I were teaching a course on Henry James, I'd ask the students to read "The Master" first and THEN read James' works</i>

But I adore that Tóibín writes (like James) across so many genres. Who else could write a biography of the Virgin Mary, totally against Church teachings, while RESPECTING church teachings?

Amazing guy.

I do adore Irish crime fiction writers, too. Not as much as I adore Scandinavian ones, but still, darn good. Tara French, for example, may have been born in the US but she is a good as Irish for all of her writing.

And OK, I still love Maeve Binchy (beat me up for this) because NO ONE better described the time when Ireland consisted only of strong women against the dole. She was able to describe equally the resurrection of Ireland, and we are so happy that her renewed Ireland was the Ireland we first got to visit.

Plus she looked like so many women we met in Irish pubs--lovely, lovely persons proud of being themselves.

Years later, after the crash, we found the youth of Dublin invigorated again. And we celebrate.

I do love Yeats.

Around Ireland with a Fridge - Tony Hawks. Around Ireland IN a Fridge would havve been a short story, lol.

If you enjoy "classic" 19th C English literature, I can recommend some of Anthony Trollope's novels set in Ireland. As much as I adore Trollope, some of them are much better than others.

Two to start that I would recommend would be

Castle Richmond

An Eye for an Eye

The Kelleys and the O'Kelleys is OK. I would avoid The MacDermots of Ballycloran.

A more contemporary work that I would recommend is 44: Dublin Made Me by Peter Sheridan. Memoir

The Booker listed The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor is another worth reading.

You have a great list going for literary fiction. I'm not sure why folks would recommend things that aren't set in Ireland, but there you go.

Roddy Doyle's story that updates the Rabbit family is The Guts (not "Guts") and it's very good. Paula Spencer is his follow up to The Woman Who Walked Into Doors; also very good.

I just finished Tristram Shandy, what a joy, it was hilarious in its 18th century way.

Ulysses is looking at me from my shelf, but you've given me so many lovely suggestions I wish there was a bookstore with absolutely everything in it so I could go buy myself a pile. I am oldschool and still enjoy paper books. You should see my collection of paperbacks from the 70s when books were cheap, I refuse to give them away.

You mentioned you were drawn to classic literature, but if you want an understanding of Ireland today, three contemporary writers I highly recommend are Belinda McKeown, Kevin Barry and Donal Ryan.

JG Farrell's Troubles has been mentioned already, it's a wonderful book. Another great work set in the same time period (early 20th century) is Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September.

Happy Reading!

For a bit of gender balance, you could look at Elizabeth Bowen, who was eloquent on the decline of the Big House (mainly Protestant ascendancy) around the time of Independence.

In terms of form, Ireland has a legion of short-story writers - William Trevor (cf), Frank O'Connor (mainly about Cork); Benedict Kiely (N.Ireland); Liam O'Flaherty (in trans from Irish; mainly Galway and west); Maeve Brennan (Irish in New York). etc etc.

Tim

>>Roddy Doyle's story that updates the Rabbit family is The Guts (not "Guts") and it's very good. <<

And since we're being particular, it's Rabbitte, not "Rabbit".