“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, November 7, 2009

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: WHAT THE DOG SAW by Malcolm Gladwell

I reviewed Malcolm Gladwell’s latest for the Sunday Business Post recently, and thoroughly enjoyed it. To wit:
A staff writer with the New Yorker since 1996, Malcolm Gladwell is best known on this side of the Atlantic for his influential books, THE TIPPING POINT (2000) and BLINK(2005).
  A compilation of essays and features taken from the New Yorker, WHAT THE DOG SAW showcases Gladwell’s ability to look at an issue - breast cancer, the Challenger disaster, the collapse of Enron - with an unusually sharp pair of fresh eyes, offering insights and conclusions that might appear at first counter-intuitive or simply perverse, but which then force the reader to reassess what he or she already knows, or thinks he or she knows.
  That’s a rare talent, and one that would, in itself, have made WHAT THE DOG SAW an interesting collection of writings.
  What Gladwell’s essays also offer, however, is the potential to change the way the reader thinks. Each piece is not only an exercise in seeing further or deeper into whatever topic happens to be under discussion, but an exercise in ways of seeing …
  For the rest, clickety-click here

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