The books that brought writers like Roddy Doyle and Tana French comfort in 2020
Irish and Ireland-based writers, including Roddy Doyle, Sinéad Gleeson and Tana French, tell us about the books that soothed them this year. By Aoife Barry Wednesday 30 Dec 2020, 6:30 PM Dec 30th 2020, 6:30 PM 14,479 Views 2 Comments
Image: Shutterstock/simona pilolla 2
Image: Shutterstock/simona pilolla 2
IN A YEAR where so much seemed strange and uncertain, books could provide an anchor and hope. Whether it was revisiting classics, buying the latest novel by an Irish writer, or even turning to a genre you wouldn’t normally choose, people could find a bit of solace in books.
Not the least of our losses in this plague year was one of our greatest poets, Derek Mahon. Washing Up (Gallery Press) is a glorious late harvest - vigorous, funny, angry, blithe - beautifully produced, like all Gallery editions, and including, appropriately, a lovely tribute to another luminary of the dead poets society, Ciaran Carson. Mahon s last is vividly alive. Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters, edited by Nienke Bakker, Leo Jansen and Hans Luijten (Thames & Hudson) is a judicious selection from the magnificent six-volume Complete Letters of 2009. Had he not been a painter, Van Gogh could have made his name as a writer, as his correspondence shows. Impassioned, often heartbreaking, furious, funny and tender, these letters form a unique testament from a pivotal figure in 19th-century art. For my third choice, I am going to flout the rules by picking a book to be published in January 2021: Billy O Callaghan s Life Sentences (Cape) is a superb and moving novel of