Latest book reviews by staff of Cork City Libraries

• The Real Global Warming Disaster  by Christopher Booker
• The Man Who Disappeared by Clare Morrall
• The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle
• City Boy by Edmund White    
• U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton
• Patrick Kavanagh & the Leader by Pat Walsh
• Captain of Rome by John Stack       
• Books Burn Badly by Manuel Rivas  
• Outside the Glow by Heather K. Crawford      
• Lovely flows the Lee by Francis Twomey & Tony McGettigan

Previous reviews can be accessed here

The Real Global Warming Disaster by Christopher Booker.

After the coldest winter for years, Christopher Booker’s book has a particular resonance. Booker argues that the consensus on global warming, which forecasts ecological disaster in our lifetimes unless drastic action is taken to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, is all a sham.

He points out that scientists who disagree with this consensus have been sidelined by the ‘warmists’, and evidence which runs contrary to it has been suppressed. He shows how there have been earlier periods of global warming, notably in the middle Ages, before industrialisation could have contributed to the greenhouse effect. He claims that modern ‘record’ temperatures are recorded at weather stations in urban heat islands, and that computer models which predict ever-rising temperatures are selective in the data they use. In other words, because the ‘warmist’ lobby believes temperatures must rise, the prediction models are tweaked to show this very pattern. In laymen’s terms that is simply bad science.

Nevertheless carbon emissions trading and carbon-neutral power generation are now big business in the West. Britain hopes to generate all of its power requirements from giant wind turbines, up to 850 feet high, all around its coasts. Booker calls this madness. Claims for wind turbines are based on ‘peak capacity’, but when the wind doesn’t blow they have no capacity at all, so is all the building just wasted effort and wasted money?

This wide-ranging, cogently argued and well presented book certainly provides us with food for thought and continues this on going debate. ‘The real global warming disaster’ is available now at Cork City Libraries.

By Tim O’Mahony

The Man Who Disappeared by Clare Morrall

The Man Who Disappeared  is the latest book by an author who has of late made great waves in a relatively short period of time in the world of the novel. Clare Morrall was short listed for the Booker Prize with her ‘Astonishing Splashes of Colour’ debut. Morrall’s books next touched the difficult subjects of reactive depression and Asperger’s Syndrome. Subjects which had already made appearances in a number novels, in recent years. I could not help but feel that her next book would be the novel on which her ability as a writer would be judged. Yet though we might have expected her to make a big effort with this book, the direction she has taken for ‘The Man Who Disappeared’ is certainly not what might have been expected. Instead of starting with the deeply complex, physically or mentally tortured modernist character Morrall gives us a woman who is happy as a mother, a wife and as a woman.

Kate Kendall lives with her husband Felix in a beautiful, if not idyllic home. They are well to do and finacially comfortable. Their children are in private schools or university. Felix is an accountant and Kate is ‘realising her personal potential’ with a part-time masters in art history. Even their relationship with each other as husband and wife seems stable, comfortable and fulfilled. Everything about Kate’s life seems idyllic.

Through this idyllic life Morrall slowly builds up a sense of uneasiness. In no way can the story continue with such a blissful existence, we think. Not with this many pages left! In an unforeseen intrusion to this blissful existence Kate learns that Felix has gone missing. Not just missing though. He is wanted on charges of money laundering and international fraud! As Kate is forced to move to a council flat and the children become aware of the change in their circumstances, Morrall focuses not on the ensuing drama. Rather on Kate’s attempts to understand the man she misread for 27 years. This book is more of an analysis of the vanities of middle class life and the things that make us tick as people, rather than a showy thriller or drama. Morrall out stripped my expectations of her skill as a writer with this book. Give ‘The Man Who Disappeared’ a try, it might do the same for you. Available now at Cork City Libraries.

The Dead Republic is the third and final book in Doyle's trilogy which covers the life and experiences of Henry Smart. In the first two books Smart lives through the turmoil political and social that is the Irish fight for independence, and his then necessary flight to America. In The Dead Republic, Smart returns to Ireland and the reality of the continuing republican conflict. Smart falls into work with John Forde who is in Ireland working on The Quiet Man. Here we are treated to Doyle’s meticulous research into the making of the movie, and tries to capture the magical influence its making had on Irish society at the time. Smart’s past catches up with him in more ways than one. He is pushed into becoming the figurehead of the republican movement, in a case of mistaken identity. And the lost love of his life comes back into his life. He goes on to work as gardener and caretaker. Careers romantically painted by Doyle as the kind in which you might expect to meet someone who has lived through a rebellion, and meet the legends of Jazz. Someone who you pass every day, but might never talk to. I think that is the kernel of truth in our humdrum existence on which Doyle based this character. The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle is available now at Cork City Libraries

Two short extracts catch the flavour of White’s memoir. Remembering a friend he writes, “there’s another more moving aspect of having really known someone destined for fame…they existed in the present, not in the safety of the past…as vulnerable to injury as the next creature…’ White’s is the story of that same vulnerability in his own life, the friends who sustained him, and the creative ferment of a city where “a tradition of honourable poverty” still remained for artists and intellectuals in unheated and unfurnished lofts in Greenwich Village.

Which brings me to the other extract… White is a gay man who lived through Stonewall riots, Gay Liberation, and the advent of The AIDS epidemic. He was a witness of the Stonewall Riots, but writes “[Gay] leaders like to criticize young gays for not taking the movement [for gay liberation] seriously, but remember at Stonewall we were defending our right to have fun, to meet each other, and to have sex”. This memoir is also a celebration of a gay man’s sexual and emotional life in the twenty years when, in the words of poet Thom Gunn, to live in a gay milieu was to “have a shared sense of adventure, thrilling, hilarious, experimental”.

White brings it all to life in measured, beautiful prose, brilliantly evoking a time, a place, a mood, and a lost innocence.

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

Through 20 excursions into the dark side of the human soul, Grafton amazingly has never written the same book twice. Her skill at crafting a good mystery hasn't diminished as she continues through the alphabet, U is for Undertow being her latest instalment. The book is set in 1988, when Kinsey Milhone is a younger but experienced 38-years-old. Consequently, Grafton's plot doesn't have to take modern technology into account, unlike the ‘Milhone mysteries’ set in the present. We start with the kidnapping of a child in 1960’s Santa Teresa, California . The child never returned home. The case is reopened after twenty years when a Michael Sutton contacts private detective Kinsey Millhone for help. He claims to have recalled a strange and disturbing memory. This might just provide a vital beginning to the unsolved murder. He may have stumbled across the kidnappers burying their victim. But as always with Sue Grafton, the plot is never as straight forward as all that! The facts that the potential witness was only six years old at the time of the kidnapping; and that even members of his family try to discredit his evidence casts a veil over the ensuing twists and turns. As Grafton brings to light the stories of the various characters involved in the tragedy, from Country Club parents to their free-living, hippy children, the truth finally begins to emerge. And by stepping back into the past, Grafton allows Kinsey discover more about her own history too. This book might well be one of the best ‘Milhone mysteries’ to date, and if you are not familiar with Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone U is for Undertow is a good starting point. Grafton’s latest is available now at Cork City Libraries.

In 1952 the Leader published an unsigned profile of Patrick Kavanagh which he considered so offensive that he said “only the pen of some man who had been down in hell could have written it.” In 1954 he became embroiled in an infamous court case. The newspaper hired John A. Costello as their defence council when Kavanagh decided to prosecute for slander.

As with Pat Walsh’s first book The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian which was very interesting, this book is fabulous.  It provides a look at the case and its effects on the key players. Essentially it is a transcript of Kavanagh’s impetuous action, with an often sympathetic and helpful commentary by Pat Walsh.

The libel case became a public sensation, receiving extensive newspaper coverage at the time, with lengthy queues of spectators outside the court each day. Costello’s detailed and masterful cross examination of Kavanagh which went on over a number of days, fatally undermined Kavanagh’s case. The jury found that Kavanagh had not been libelled. Kavanagh was both personally humiliated and financially devastated. The court case dragged on for over a year and Kavanagh's health began to fail. On appeal the decision was later overturned but the damage to Kavanagh had been done...

 Pat Walsh offers a brief summary of Kavanagh’s career (his early autobiography The Green Fool was withdrawn by the publisher because of a successful libel action against him by Gogarty) and puts meat on the bones of this chunk of history. Patrick Kavanagh & the Leader is available now at a number of Cork City Library branches.

Captain of Rome by John Stack

Atticus, and Youghal native John Stack, is back. And despite his developing friendship with Septimus he still finds himself with new and powerful enemies. That’s what happens when you disobey orders and as we’ve seen in the first book, Ship of Rome, Atticus thinks more of common sense than politics. But this is about action, set within an interesting historical period, the author blends both land and sea action so we readers get quite a wide perspective, from naval action to Legionaries mixing it on the land. This is good stuff, well written and fast paced. There is an element of the expected in this, the traditional bad guy, the two friends, the love interest and the action but it is well put together

The hero, Atticus, captain of the Aquila is well realised, as is his best friend Septimus. The tensions between them are well set up. Atticus is of Greek extraction and treated with suspicion by his Roman associates, and this makes for interesting conflict as he doesn't always receive the recognition he deserves. Septimus, from an older lineage has issues with Atticus, even while they are friends and allies, and he is not best pleased when he suspects that Atticus is courting his widowed sister, Hadria.
Even if there are obvious heroes, there are no absolute villains of the piece as such, just guys you'd rather not cheer for. Motivations are explained and this gives the characters depth and allows you to see their side of matters. Scipio and Dulius are two wily politicians, creeping behind each other's backs to secure power in the senate, and their attitudes and ambitions impinge directly on Atticus and Septimus.
The setting of the Romans at Sea is a different one and refreshing.
Well worth the read if you like action and adventure in the Roman period.

John Stack is a powerful storyteller. His stirring, epic adventure throws new light on the story of Rome and the sea battles are magnificent.

Paul Cussen

This book by Spanish author Manuel Rivas is simply a joy to read. Funny considering the dark subject which it covers. Burn Books Badly is a fictional, book set around an actual historical event. We are all familiar with the images of mass book burnings in Germany during Hitler’s reign, but I had never heard of book burnings in Spain. Rivas builds the book around one day, 19th August 1936, early in the Spanish Civil War when books were destroyed in Galicia. The main characters, instead of being politically or militarily motivated, are instead a boxer, a washerwoman, match girls and fishermen. The ordinary, yet colourful local people of La Coruna. The local boxer and strong man called Hercules, yes the mythical name has more significance than the obvious, saves a rare book from the fires. Hercules is also the name of the La Coruna lighthouse, the emblem of which is an open book with light beaming out. This is a perfect example of Rivas ability to combine folklore, metaphor and imagery, which permeates every level of this book. The Spanish Civil War is a very popular choice for authors currently, with a sizable quantity of fiction being published in that setting in recent years. Yet Manuel Rivas has produced something which truly transcends anything else I have read in some time. This is a fantastic book, one which I can’t recommend more highly. Burn Books Badly is available now at Cork City Libraries.

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This book looks at how Irish Protestants view the attitudes of their Catholic fellow-citizens towards them. Based on 100 in-depth interviews, with 64 Protestants and 32 Catholics, it is written from a Protestant perspective. The study confirms that Catholics still think of Protestants as different and that Protestants for their part, are conscious of this and resent it. The author everywhere and at all times insists on the absence of legal discrimination against Protestants in Ireland, and on the unconscious nature of Catholic prejudice.

 The interviews were conducted in various parts of the country, including West Cork. As a Catholic from a rural background I could contribute my own anecdotes (if anyone had asked me!). For me the book has been a ‘to see ourselves as others see us’ kind of exercise, and I think any Catholic reader of Crawford’s book will be putting his views under the microscope.

However the study struggles to establish a position on the ‘inside the glow’ issue. This is as important to the core aims of Crawford’s work as the unconscious nature of Catholic prejudice. Running through the testimonies is a common tread of ‘No I am not Irish in the same way as Catholics are, but I still want to be regarded as Irish’. It would be wrong to deny the differences that certainly exist between the faith communities, but surely we can all be Irish in our different ways. This book is an important contribution to the debate about Irish identities. A must read for all of us, which is available now at Cork City Libraries.

Lovely flows the Lee by Francis Twomey & Tony McGettigan

Lovely flows the Lee by Francis Twomey & Tony McGettigan is a beautifully illustrated account of the Lee from its source to the harbour. The book is divided into four sections. Section 1 deals with the upper reaches of the Lee, section 2 with the valley, section 3 with the city and section 4 with the harbour. While the book has the appearance of a coffee table book the text is very well written and genuinely informative. The Corkonian who would not learn something from it would be very learned indeed. The quality of the photographs throughout is superb. The photograph of the source of the Lee in a tiny rivulet will amaze those who suffered during the dreadful flooding of last November. As the text states ‘ The river, that will later be harnessed to generate electricity and later still become the centre of a busy city and a mighty harbour, comes into being tentatively in the boggy saddle between Bealick and Coomroe in the Shehy Mountains.’ I would commend readers to join with the authors on the journey of the Lee from the source to the sea. Lovely flows the Lee is available for reference in the Local Studies Library of Cork City Libraries.