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Programme 27: 17th May 2008
FIRE IN THE BLOOD and SUITE FRANCAISE by Irène Némirovksy
This week on Off the Shelf, Julia Carlson and Niall MacMonagle discuss two books by Irène Némirovksy, who was born in Kiev in 1903. In 1918 her family fled the Russian Revolution for France where she became a bestselling novelist. Prevented from publishing when the Germans occupied France in 1940, she stayed with her husband and two small daughters in the small village of Issy - l'Evèque (situated in German occupied territory). In July 1942 she was arrested by the French police and interned in Pithiviers concentration camp, and from there immediately deported to Auschwitz where she died in August 1942.
Both books have only recently been discovered. Suite Française opens in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. It tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way. Fire in the Blood, set in a Burgundy village, recounts three interlocking stories of love and betrayal over two decades.
Presenter: Andy O' Mahony
Producer: Bernadette Comerford
Programme 26: 10th May 2008
THERE'S A RIOT GOING ON: Revolution, Rock Stars and the Rise and Fall of the 60s Counter-culture
In Off the Shelf this week, Máirín de Burca, Dave Fanning and Eamonn McCann discuss There's A Riot Going On: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars, and the Rise and Fall of '60s Counter-Culture by Peter Doggett.
Between 1967 and 1973, political activists around the globe prepared to mount a revolution. While the Vietnam War raged, calls for black power grew louder and liberation movements erupted everywhere from Africa to Western Europe. Demonstrators took to the streets, fought gun battles with police, planted bombs in public buildings and attempted to overthrow the world's most powerful governments. Rock and soul music fuelled the revolutionary movement with anthems and iconic imagery. Soon the musicians themselves, from John Lennon and Bob Dylan to James Brown and Fela Kuti, were being dragged into the fray. Some joined the protestors on the barricades; some were persecuted for their political activism; some abandoned the cause and were dismissed as counter-revolutionaries.
Programme 25: 3rd May 2008
MY UNWRITTEN BOOKS
My Unwritten Books by George Steiner will be discussed by Anne Fogarty, Harry White and Fintan O'Toole.
George Steiner, the eminent professor of English at Cambridge and Geneva Universities, has outlined seven books he has never written, but has always wanted to write, in seven sections. The themes range widely and defy conventional taboos: the torment of the gifted when they live among, when they confront, the very great; the experience of sex in different languages; a love for animals greater than for human beings; the costly privilege of exile; a theology of emptiness. Yet a unifying perception underlies this diversity. The best we have or can produce is only the tip of the iceberg. Behind every good book, as in a lit shadow, lies the book which remained unwritten, the one that would have failed better.
Programme 24: 26th April 2008
FOOLISH MORTALS by Jennifer Johnston and WITH MY LAZY EYE by Julia Kelly
Two recent Irish novels, Jennifer Johnston's 'Foolish Mortals' and 'With My Lazy Eye' by Julia Kelly are discussed by Julia Carlson and Niall MacMonagle.
Both are concerned with father-daughter relationships. In the Jennifer Johnston novel, Ciara's estranged father is nearly killed by his second wife in a car accident - or was it an accident? Ciara begins, gingerly, to re-enter his life. As her troubled family gather for the Christmas holidays, is it too much to hope that they begin to find peace at last? Of course it is. But Christmas proves both more disastrous and happier than any of them could have guessed.
Julia Kelly's novel tells the story of Bunty, a myopic, muddle-headed little girl and her relationship with her distant father. As she stumbles her way through childhood and teenage years - failing exams, losing tennis matches, fighting with her father, falling in and out of love, longing for his attention - her eyesight deteriorates and her father becomes ever more elusive. Then a chance discovery about her father's past changes the course of her life and her attitude towards him forever.
Programme 23: 19th April 2008
The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan.
From 1987 to 2006 Alan Greenspan was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve of the United States. In this memoir he shares the story of his life to convey to readers the full flavour of the extraordinary years he experienced and shaped, taking full measure of the individuals who made strong impressions on him, including every US President from Nixon to George W. Bush, and Prime Ministers Thatcher and Blair, and the great crises and challenges that they faced.
This book is discussed by Mary Raftery, Patrick Honohan and Brendan Keenan.
Programme 22: 12th April 2008
Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped The Twentieth Century By David Reynolds
Discussed By Richard Aldous, Noel Dorr And Gemma Hussey.
Programme 21: 29th March 2008
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
The book will be discussed by Ian Robertson and Dermot Moran.
Steven Pinker's book analyses what words actually mean and how we use them, and he reveals what this can tell us about ourselves. He shows how we use space and motion as metaphors for more abstract ideas, and uncovers the deeper structures of human thought that have been shaped by evolutionary history.
He also explores the emotional impact of language, from names to swear words, and shows us the full power that it can have over us. And he also shows just how stimulating and entertaining language can be.
Programme 20: 22nd March 2008
The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalins Russia by Orlando Figes
This week's book is discussed by Judith Devlin and Ron Hill.
Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin, brilliantly conveying the reality of their terrible choices. Soviet history has generally been seen either as a story of a political system or the story of its victims. 'The Whisperers' is about Russians from across the whole range of experience under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. 'The Whisperers' recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it; a society in which everyone spoke in whispers: whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.
Programme 19: 15th March 2008
Two books about Hillary Clinton, "A Woman in Charge" by Carl Bernstein and "Her Way" by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. reviewed by Gemma Hussey and Pat Rabbitte.
Programme 18: 8th March 2008
Paisley: Religion And Politics In Northern Ireland by Steve Bruce
This week's book will be reviewed by Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland Minister of the Environment, Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies, and Brian Feeney, Head of History at St Mary's University College, Belfast.
The career of the Revd Ian Paisley raises vital questions about the links between religion and politics in the modern world. Paisley is unique in having founded his own church and party and led both to success, so that he effectively has a veto over political developments in Northern Ireland. Steve Bruce charts Paisley's movement from the maverick fringes to the centre of Ulster politics and discusses in detail the changes in his party that accompanied its rise.
Programme 17: 1st March 2008
Exit Ghost by Philip Roth and Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee
This week two books will be discussed by Julia Carlson and Niall MacMonagle.
Roth's novel portrays Nathan Zuckerman coming back to New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England mountain, Zuckerman has been nothing but a writer: no voices, no media, no terrorist threats, no women, no news, no tasks other than his work and the enduring of old age. Back in New York, he is suddenly involved, as he never wanted or intended to be again, with love, mourning, desire, and animosity.
In Coetzee's novel, an eminent, seventy-two-year-old writer is invited to contribute to a book entitled 'Strong Opinions'. It is a chance to air some urgent concerns. In the laundry-room of his apartment block he encounters an alluring young woman. When he discovers she is 'between jobs' he claims failing eyesight and offers her work typing up his manuscript. Anya has no interest in politics but the job provides a distraction, as does the writer's evident and not unwelcome attraction toward her.
Programme 16: 23rd February 2008
The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006 by Paul Bew is discussed by Ronan Fanning and John A. Murphy
Programme 15: 16th February 2008
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
Crime novelist John Connolly and retired army officer and lecturer in the School of Media DIT, Tom Clonan, discuss this week's book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner.
Since its creation in 1947, the CIA has been a byword for everything that is sinister and ruthless about America's projection of power during the Cold War and with the 'war on terror'. But the CIA portrayed in Tim Weiner's book has been incompetent, naive, chaotic, and a danger to American interests for sixty years.
Programme 14: 9th February 2008
Shakespeare the Thinker by A.D. Nuttall
Reviewed by Anne Fogarty and Fintan O'Toole.
Programme 13: 2nd February 2008
Why we hate Politics by Colin Hay
This week's book is discussed by Richard Sinnott, Mary Raftery and Martin Mansergh.
In today's society the word 'politics' is seen increasingly in a negative light. In this book Colin Hay attempts to understand and explain the reasons for this wide ranging perception. He begins by tracing the origins and development of the current climate of political disillusionment across a broad range of established democracies. Far from revealing a rising tide of apathy, however, he shows that a significant amount of those who have left formal politics are engaged in political activity of another kind. He goes on to develop and defend the broad and inclusive origins of politics and the political that is far less formal, less state-centric and less narrowly governmental than in most perceive it.
Programme 12: 26th January 2008
OFF THE SHELF: Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI
This week's book is discussed by Seán Freyne and Fr. Pat Rogers.
When Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005 he became the most accomplished theologian to ascend to the Papacy in several hundred years. Over the previous fifty years of his life he wrote scores of theological works; even his critics have acknowledged his erudition and intellect. The Pope has called Jesus of Nazareth, "solely an expression of my personal search for the face of the Lord. Everyone is free, then, to contradict me. I would only ask my readers for that initial willingness to sympathise, without which there can be no understanding." The author's fundamental purpose in this book is to restore and renew 'the interior friendship with Jesus a figure that makes sense and feels right in historical terms.'
Saturday 19th January
No programme due to live coverage of Munster v Wasps in the Heineken Cup.
Programme 11: 12th January 2008
Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change
Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change, 1970-2000
by R. F. Foster is discussed by John A. Murphy and Ronan Fanning.
R. F. Foster is Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. His books include Modern Ireland, 1600-1972, The Irish Story and W. B. Yeats: A Life. His new book looks at the roots of the changes which came with an almost completely unexpected wave of prosperity. He examines the upheavals in economics, North-South attitudes, international relations, demography, gender roles, sexual mores, culture and religion which accompanied the boom, as well as the significance of such emblematic characters as Mary Robinson, Bob Geldof and Charles Haughey. Luck and the Irish also discusses the themes of corruption, scandal, New Age Celticism, popular culture and the occasional retreat into reactionary attitudes that followed the liberalisation, enrichment and marketing of the New Ireland. He also sees what these transformations mean for Irish history in the long run.
Programme 10: 5th January 2008
LLOYD GEORGE AND CHURCHILL: RIVALS FOR GREATNESS by Richard Toye
This book will be discussed by Kevin Myers and Richard Aldous
Programme 9: 29th December 2007
Julia Carlson and Niall MacMonagle discuss The Gathering by Anne Enright, which won the 2007 Man Booker Prize.
The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him - although that certainly helped - it was what happened to him as a boy in his grandmother's house, in the winter of 1968. His sister, Veronica was there then, as she is now: keeping the dead man company, just for another little while.
Also on this evening's programme, a review of The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis, a first novel for this talented and versatile actor known from his roles from Naked, Seven Years in Tibet and Harry Potter. The novel is set in the world of Brit-Art. Hector Kipling is an artist who has his health, loving parents, a beautiful girlfriend, good mates, and talent in abundance. What more could he ask for? But once Hector's life starts to unravel, it doesn't take long at all for it to fall completely and irreparably apart.
Programme 8: 22nd December 2007
Margaret McCurtain, Bill McSweeney and Maurice Devlin have been reading Barbara Ehrenreich's book 'Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy'. Ehrenreich discovers that the same elements come up in every human culture throughout history: a love of masking, carnival, music-making and dance. Although sixteenth-century Europeans began to view mass festivities as foreign and 'savage', Ehrenreich shows that they were indigenous to the West, from the ancient Greek's worship of Dionysus to the medieval practices of Christianity as a 'danced religion'.
Programme 7: 15th December 2007
On this week's programme, Seven Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective by Archie Brown will be reviewed by Judith Devlin, Ron Hill and Séamus Martin.
Programme 6: 8th December 2007
This week's Off the Shelf will feature two books: Falling Man by Don De Lillo and The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud.
Andy O'Mahony will be joined by reviewers Julia Carlson and Niall Mac Monagle.
Programme 5: 1st December 2007
CULTURAL AMNESIA: NOTES IN THE MARGINS OF MY TIME by Clive James
A rundown of the intellectuals, artists, and thinkers who shaped the 20th century. Taken together, the essays-presented in an A-to-Z format-offer a compelling alternative history of the last century and of the struggles of liberal humanism against totalitarianism.
Programme 4: 24th November 2007
MICHAEL FOOT: A LIFE by Kenneth Morgan
Michael D. Higgins discusses Kenneth Morgan's biography of Michael Foot, the former British Labour Party leader, now in his nineties, who is also an eminent man of letters. Michael Foot has been a controversial and charismatic figure in British public life, political and literary, for over sixty years. He was Labour leader for two-and-a-half-years between 1980 and 1983. His political friendships with people like Beaverbrook, Cripps, Aneurin Bevan and Barbara Castle were passionate and profound, but he also had a remarkable and quite different career as a man of letters, with Dean Swift, Tom Paine, Hazlitt, Byron, Wordsworth, Heine, Wells and Silone amongst his heroes.
Programme 3: 17th November 2007
This week Alexis De Tocqueville: Prophet of Democracy in the Age of Revolution by Hugh Brogan is reviewed by Kevin Whelan and Martin Mansergh.
Alexis de Tocqueville was one of the greatest political thinkers of all time. Born a French aristocrat, his family was nearly wiped out in the Reign of Terror and he spent most of his adult life struggling for liberty under the unsuccessful regimes of nineteenth-century France. Aged 25 he travelled to America and encountered democracy for the first time. This first-hand experience contributed to his incisive writing on liberty and democracy. The Ancient Regime launched the scholarly study of the French Revolution, and Democracy in America remains the best book ever written by a European about the United States. De Tocqueville also travelled in Ireland in 1835 and kept diaries of his experiences here.
Programme 2: 10th November 2007
This week on Off the Shelf Anne Fogarty, Selina Guinness and Peter Sirr review two books about poetry: Paul Muldoon's The End of the Poem and How to Read a Poem by Terry Eagleton.
The End of the Poem contains the fifteen lectures delivered by Paul Muldoon during his tenure as Oxford Professor of Poetry, from 1999 to 2004. Each lecture focuses upon an individual poem, with examples mostly drawn from twentieth century poets such as Yeats, Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Stevie Smith, Lowell, Marianne Moore - with a notable emphasis on European poets such as Pessoa, Tsvetayeva and Montale.
In How to Read a Poem Terry Eagleton argues that the art of reading poetry is as much in danger of becoming extinct as thatching or clog dancing. On the whole, he believes, students today are not taught how to be sensitive to language - how to read a poem with due attention to its tone, mood, pitch, pace, rhythm and texture, rather than just to 'what it says'. The book is designed to banish the intimidation that too often attends the subject of poetry.
Programme 1: 3rd November 2007
The first of a new season of RTÉ Radio 1's book programme .Off the Shelf returns to the airwaves at its new time on Saturday evening with a special on the writings of Kenneth Tynan.
Ingrid Craigie and Bruce Arnold have been reading Theatre Writings, a selection of the best of Tynan's theatre criticism. Included in the book are ground-breaking reviews of plays by Arthur Miller, John Osborne, T.S.Eliot and Noel Coward, as well as articles on such topics as Broadway musicals, censorship, Brecht in Berlin and the National Theatre, where he was to be Olivier's right-hand man - thus ending his career as a critic. The reviewers have also read Tynan's Profiles, featuring many of the most significant performers and writers of his day, including actors such as Garbo, Bogart, Cagney, Olivier and Gielgud; the directors George Cukor, Peter Brook and Joan Littlewood; writers such as Bertolt Brecht, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams; and comedians as diverse as Mel Brooks, Eric Morecambe, W.C. Fields and Lenny Bruce.