Dublinesque, A Novel of a Journey Connecting the Worlds of Joyce and Beckett by Enrique Vila-Matas

On September 2, 2012, in Book Reviews, Fiction, by Editor

Enrique Vila-Matas traces a journey that connects the worlds of Joyce and Beckett, revealing the difficulties faced by literary authors, publishers, and good readers in a society where literature is losing influence. A robust work, Dublinesque is a masterwork of irony, humor, and erudition by one of Spain’s most celebrated living authors.

James Joyce: A New Biography With a Massively Detailed Narrative by Gordon Bowker

On August 18, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, History, Nonfiction, by Editor

James Joyce is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, his novels and stories foundational in the history of literary modernism. Yet Joyce’s genius was by no means immediately recognized, nor was his success easily won. At twenty-two he chose a life of exile; he battled poverty and financial dependency for much of his adult life; his out-of-wedlock relationship with Nora Barnacle was scandalous for the time; and the attitudes he held towards the Irish and Ireland, England, sexuality, politics, Catholicism, popular culture—to name a few—were complex, contradictory, and controversial.