“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Note To Self: Insert ‘Wot’s On / Watson’ Header Here

Bastion of all things academic and intellectual, Trinity College Dublin is currently hosting an exhibition titled ‘The Body in the Library – the great detectives 1841 to 1941’. Quoth the TCD website:
The detective novel is a genre which generates great popular interest and also growing academic and critical attention. The library’s collections across the past two centuries reflect the development of this form of imaginative writing. This exhibition will illustrate the origins of the detective story in the mid-19th century, the growth in popularity of fictional heroes such as Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown and Hercule Poirot. There will be a focus on the first golden age of crime writing in the 1920s and 1930s.
  The exhibition opened on Thursday, and runs until June 15. There’s no details as to a specific Irish crime / mystery dimension, but hey – Trinners doing detective fiction? It’s a start.
  I’m also hearing persistent rumours that NYU is planning a symposium on Irish crime fiction later this year. I’ll keep you posted.

1 comment:

seana graham said...

I can't know whether Trinity will give Irish crime fiction its due, but I must say that that library is like a sort of preview of heaven to me, so I hope they do well by all of you.