The Ryan Tubridy Show Book Club – RTE Radio 1
Ryan Tubridy is one of Ireland more entertaining broadcasters. His morning radio show on RTE Radio One is best described as an light, engaging and entertaining chat with your next door neighbor.
The show covers many different topics and is at its best when exploring the “New” Ireland culture, society and dipping his big toe into the world of celebrity or Irish politics, sometimes even the world outside of Ireland.
Ryan has a great love for books and encourages his listeners to read, indeed to set up their own book club. As part of this he (and his team) recommend a book every month for his audience to read, during the month he invites comments and at the end of the month discusses a review of the book.
The January 2009 pick for the Ryan Tubridy bookclub is Testimony by Anita Shreve
At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora’s box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voice — those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal — that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment. A gripping emotional drama with the pace of a thriller, Anita Shreve’s Testimony explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.
The Author: Anita Shreve is the author of thirteen other critically acclaimed and bestselling novels, all published in Abacus paperback.
For December 2008, Ryan picked Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates as the latest edition for his bookclub.
Hailed as a masterpiece from the moment of its first publication, “Revolutionary Road” is the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple whose empty suburban life is held together by the dream that greatness is only just round the corner. With heartbreaking compassion and clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their hopes and ideals, betraying in the end not only each other, but their own best selves.
The Author: Richard Yates was born in 1926 in New York and lived in California. His prize-winning stories began to appear in 1953 and his first novel, Revolutionary Road, was nominated for the National Book Award in 1961. He is the author of eight other works, including the novels A Good School, The Easter Parade, and Disturbing the Peace, and two collections of short stories, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness and Liars in Love. He died in 1992.
The book club book for the Tubridy show for November 2008 is ‘With my Lazy Eye’ by Julia Kelly.
Irish Newcomer of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards 2008.
“With My Lazy Eye” is the story of Lucy. Lucy’s a misfit. She’s growing up in a large family in a semi-detached house, dreaming of being someone else and making her father proud.
It’s not looking promising. He’s an internationally renowned academic and her siblings are bright achievers, but Lucy is lazy, directionless and never quite manages to succeed. Perhaps that’s because she’s not really trying. She hasn’t got the energy to revise for exams, she can’t convince herself to care about coming last and even when she goes to London and finds the perfect job, she is still destined to fail. And as far as men are concerned, Lucy tumbles into bed with one after another, never finding any she can find real affection for. It seems she’s going nowhere – fast.
Finally, Lucy is going to grow up and choose her own life, but when a family crisis looms, it might just be too late.
The Author:
Julia Kelly was born in 1969, studied English, Sociology and Journalism in Dublin, and escaped to London for the mad, bad years of life. She now lives in Bray, County Wicklow. This is her first novel.
The Tubridy book club restarted for 2008-2009 and the first book was : The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mohsin Hamid)
Synopsis:
At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man converses with a stranger. As dusk deepens to dark, he begins the tale that has brought him to this fateful meeting…Among the brightest and best of his graduating class at Princeton, Changez is snapped up by an elite firm and thrives on New York and the intensity of his work. And his infatuation with fragile Erica promises entree into Manhattan society on the exalted footing his own family once held back in Lahore. For a time, it seems as though nothing will stand in the way of Changez’s meteoric rise to personal and professional success: the fulfillment of the immigrant’s dream. But in the wake of September 11, he finds his position in the city he loves suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez’s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and perhaps even love.
About the Author:
Mohsin Hamid grew up in Lahore, attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and worked for several years as a management consultant in New York. His first novel, Moth Smoke, was published in ten languages, won a Betty Trask award, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award, and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Mohsin Hamid currently lives, works and writes in London.
The Tubridy Show Book club list for 2009
The Tubridy Show Book club list for 2008