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I'm reading this. Short stories all themed about the family. My next album (nearly finished writing it) is themed on family situations so it's sort of research.

RE: Silas Marner. In the film the squid and the whale the Dad (scruffy professor type) gives out about the education system pushing the lesser novels of great writers just because they are shorter. I'd put Silas Marner in that camp. I also think it's on the leaving cert course because it...

Tess of the D'Urbevilles is the best. Jude is probably the best after that so it's a good place to start. I would rate the novels something like this: Premier divison: Tess Jude Mayor of casterbridge Very good: Far from the madding crowd Return of the Native The woodlanders The...

I'm reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. Being a Hardy fan Eliot is a natural next move for me. It's supposed to be one of the greatest novels of all time I'm about 500 pages into it and while it's an impressive book it has none of Hardy's feeling. The narrator never really leaves your...

I'm reading Twenty Years After, the sequel to the Three Musketeers by Dumas (and prequel to the Man in the Iron Mask). Dumas is surely one of the great underrated writers; probably dismissed as a glorified children's writer because of the popular depictions of the Count of Monte Cristo, the Man...

Still reading Felix Holt: the Radical by George Eliot - I was a bit disappointed by the Mill on the Floss but this is another class altogether. I have missing Thomas Hardy since i finished his stuff, but Eliot is a worthy replacement.

Just started Felix Holt the Radical by George Eliot. I was a bit disappointed by the Mill on the Floss but this has started out well. I also read the august edition of WhatCar magazine, which compared the new Polo to nine other supermini contenders - the Polo came out of top.

Out Stealing Horse by Per Peterson. A norwegian writer with a book that splits between old age and childhood memories, sprinkled with episodes that suggest a connection between the two life periods without really being able to draw a clear link. Like many modern books, reading this was a nice...

haven't got to John yet, but I think he did his own thing.

Just started Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins which is an autobiography cum (literally) kiss-and-tell book by Rupert Everett, which is a hoot to read and surprisingly well written. I still think he should have called it 'Mount Everett'. I am also reading the new testament just for the...

I have to say i found Lolita tough going when i read it a few years ago and I don't normally mind 'difficult' books. I've just finished a few boxing books and then read Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut (meh) and have just started Thomas Hardy: A Biography revisited, by Michael Millgate. It is...

I'm working my way through the Granta book of american short stories at the moment. With a young baby my reading is restricted to the DART so short stories suit me. Bets ones so far are by Eudora Welty, John Cheever and Flannery O'Brien.

I finished Amongst Women by John McGahern last night. A keenly observed portrait of the type of domestic tyrant that seems to populate Irish households. Petty passive agression and domination by guilt. A very powerful book - dark but very deep. I am now reading Fatherhood by Bill Cosby...

Just finished the Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. As i mentioned in another thread, I thought I'd try it out after hearing that she was like Thomas Hardy. The book was pretty lukewarm and drawn out. A disappointing 5/10 for George.

Just finished "a bit on the side", short stories by William Trevor. Very like the Claire Keegan stories I read previously - longing, atmospheric regret, bit of Irishness. Lovely, but a bit heavy reading those two books back to back. Next is Lance Cole - Saab 99 and 900: the complete story.

Just finished Antartica by Calire Keegan. It's her first book of short stories which i sought out after enjoying her second book Walk the Blue Fields. She's a really gifted writer: bleak accounts of neglected lives, but told with great subtlety and understatement.

After a couple of months of reading fairly light and breezy holiday-type books, I got bored and decided to get back in to fiction and something a bit longer, so i started the Brothers Karamazov* by Dostoyevsky last night. I've read the Double and Crime and Punishment so I'm expecting great...

Juts finished the Snow Country by Kawabata. Sort of DH Lawrence in the mountains outside Tokyo. Slow dialogue pregnant with a meaning that escapes me. Am half way through Life's Little Ironies, short stories by Thomas Hardy. His short stories are really underrated, and under-read, but hold...

I've finished the Rules of the road and am now back in the market for fiction - next is Snow Country Yasunari Kawabata

I'm thinking of picking up that Granta book - it's down to €13 in paperback in Hodges Figgis at the moment.