Latest news with #EdnaOBrien
Daily Mail
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Which murder mystery writer will you not find on David Nicholls's bookshelf?
What Book... ... are you reading now? Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls Trilogy. I met her once, at the very first World Book Night in 2011, in the same green room as Alan Bennett and John le Carré. Needless to say, I was a little intimidated by the company, but she was charming, charismatic and kind, with a wonderful air of glamour. I'd not read her work but recently I watched an amazing documentary about her, Blue Road, so picked this up. All the qualities on display in the film – honesty, courage, rebelliousness – are there on the page too, and she has a wonderful style, often quite spare but full of these incredibly vivid images. Fourteen years on, and I'm a fan. ... would you take to a desert island I wonder sometimes if I've lost the ability to read long novels, the kind of 800-page monsters that I used to wolf down in the pre-internet age. Some books have always defeated me – I've read the first third of Middlemarch at least four times, enjoying it very much before always running aground at the same point. But the biggest omission is probably Anna Karenina, the greatest love story ever written (I'm told). I have five copies on my shelf, all different translations, and on a desert island, I might actually find the time and the focus required. ... gave you the reading bug I was a passionate reader as a child, a devout member of The Puffin Club which, along with my local library, did a brilliant job of putting books into the hands of readers who might not know where to start. I loved The Silver Sword, E. Nesbit, all kinds of wonderful books that have disappeared now. I adored the Moomins, while at the same time finding them incredibly melancholy, all part of the pleasure, I think. But The Chronicles Of Narnia swept me away. I devoured them, particularly The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader and Prince Caspian, and longed to be part of that world. My love of fantasy didn't last long – Tolkien defeated me – but I understand that intoxicating feeling. ... left you cold? I do worry about dismissing much-loved writers – but I've come to accept that Agatha Christie is not for me. I have no doubts about her skill as a writer, but the desire to solve the puzzle is never enough to get me through.
The Guardian
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘A belter of a movie': Guardian readers' best films of 2025 so far
Sebastian is about an aspiring writer, Max, who lives a double life as a sex worker. It's gritty and somewhat shocking, insofar as it's not a highly discussed topic in film, yet it is also very tender. I watched it on a rainy Saturday afternoon without knowing anything about it. I was immediately hooked by how normal Max's life was and intrigued by his decision to set up an online escort profile under the name of his alter ego, Sebastian, for the purpose of his novel, in which he details his varied sexual experiences. The film addresses issues such as shame, authenticity in fiction and consent with a refreshing lack of judgment on the topic of sex work. Ruaridh Mollica is fantastic as Max/Sebastian and I can't wait to see him in more films. Ann-Marie, Glasgow Blue Road is an engrossing and hugely enjoyable documentary of Edna O'Brien's enigmatic life of dizzying highs and haunting lows. Beautifully edited, it ultimately depicts how emotionally vulnerable we all are, regardless of any public persona. It's a wonderful, inspirational documentary for any would-be writer or artist who wishes to stay true to their vision and who craves a life less ordinary. O'Brien rattled all the right cages all the time. At the height of her fame, she returns to County Clare and listens to her father sing Danny Boy. She stares at him with a stoical yet fearful expression – a powerfully resonant image. Edna, 93, watches it and loves that song. It reminded me of the Smiths song Back to the Old House. And, funnily enough, I noticed her image this week in a review of a Morrissey concert. He is using Edna as a backdrop on stage. What a woman she was. Ron, London Parthenope by Paolo Sorrentino is the best film I've seen this year. I'm surprised it's been quite poorly received by critics and audiences. The problem seems to be Parthenope, the aloof, distant woman at the centre of the story. She is playful, innocuously flirtatious and happily uninterested in forging any deep connection with the many male admirers she's surrounded by, her only real interest being in the writer John Cheever – whose homosexuality and ennui pose no threat to her – and, ironically, he gracefully declines her offer of company one night, not wanting to 'steal a second of [her] youth'. We find that people are strange, mostly unknowable, and we are, one way or another, destined to fail any attempt to close (or even narrow) the gap between us and the rest of the world. The film is exceptionally beautiful to look at. Yes, it is long and meandering, and not a lot happens, but the overall feeling is that you've experienced what life is often like: a curious sense of removal from all the living going on around you; not feeling fully a part of it. Stephen, Dublin Holy Cow gets my vote. It's an uplifting, funny ensemble piece from mostly untrained actors set in the bucolic Jura region of France. It perfectly captures the inertia of youth in a rural community where Totone, the local teenage delinquent, strives to make the perfect comté cheese to win prize money to prop up his ailing farm and family. Local rituals and rivalries vividly portray farming communities without sugarcoating the harsh reality of working the land day in day out. You end up rooting for Totone and his merry gang. Kate Franklin, Hove Bring Her Back is my film of the year so far because it perfectly executes all of its genre conventions yet steps outside every single one simultaneously. It also has a central role from Sally Hawkins that deserves every recognition available. Finally, while much horror is trending on grief and trauma, Bring Her Back gives proper emotional weight while never once encouraging empathy towards evil. Genuinely brilliant. Michael Macaulay, Paraparaumu, Aotearoa Flow has to be my favourite film released so far this year, and I have a strong feeling it may also be my daughter's. We watched it on the big screen and were immersed in this seemingly post-apocalyptic world, where abandoned buildings reclaimed by nature are the only thing to suggest humans ever existed. It's a lovely film about companionship, physical struggle, uncertainty and hope. It's also beautifully illustrated, and the story is so urgent that, months on, we still urge all our friends to watch it. It's evident that the makers of Flow have paid exquisite attention to detail when it comes to portraying the behaviour of animals, as they catch fish, sleep and ultimately try to survive. Dnieper, London One dark Sunday evening in February, I dragged myself out to watch I'm Still Here. It was the Mubi film of the week, I had no other plans, and I knew it had been nominated for some awards. And honestly, it was one of my best decisions of the year. I'm Still Here is a heady juxtaposition of beach life, sepia shots and easy, middle-class family life in Rio de Janeiro with the growing reality of a repressive military regime. I quietly sobbed through chunks of the second half: a masterclass in film-making, and Fernanda Torres deservedly won her Golden Globe for the portrayal of a woman trying desperately to hold it all together as life as she knows it falls apart around her. This is what cinema is all about. Sarah, London Sign up to Film Weekly Take a front seat at the cinema with our weekly email filled with all the latest news and all the movie action that matters after newsletter promotion I haven't watched a huge amount of 2025 releases but my favourite has to be The Surfer, starring the almighty Nicolas Cage as a dad whose determination to buy his ideal beachfront house drives him to madness. Lots of films critique capitalism or patriarchy, but I struggle to think of any which do such a good job of showing how intertwined they are. And it tells that story in such an engaging and surreal way; as the main character loses his grip on reality in his self-destructive pursuit of this property, it feels as if you're following him down the rabbit hole of delusion and insanity. Joe, Leeds My choice is Spit, starring David Wenham. It's a sendup of Australia's criminal class, with more savage mockery of its immigrant detention system and a rather unappealing and entirely human protagonist. David Arthur, Maryborough, Queensland As widely reviewed, the film is a stark and humorous look at loneliness, but I would argue its perspective on nostalgia and letting go of the past is even more compelling. We all suffer from nostalgia-baiting and can all meander down memory lane at times, but this film can show the danger of living in the past. It is wickedly funny, with the conservatory scene a particular highlight. (I still chuckle when I think of: 'Oh yes, unbearably hot.') Eddie, London Sinners is a marvellous film reminiscent of the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? The music alone is incredible. There is an amazing scene based around a blues song, where the genres that inspired the tune combine with the genres it continues to inspire. I loved the story and the relationship between the anti-hero and his wife. It encapsulates what community does, and is capable of, when it needs to come together. It felt real. This is something a lot of films miss the target on. A belter of a movie. Lee Keith, Sunderland Of the 35 films I have seen this year, it is Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain that stands out for me. Rightly known and celebrated for Kieran Culkin's turn as Benji, cousin to David (Eisenberg), this movie offers so much more. A sensitive, delicately formed homage to Eisenberg's family history, it explores their complex relationship, the essence of trauma tourism and the history and beauty of Poland. It also has a haunting score of Chopin's intricate piano pieces. David Reid, Mirfield, West Yorkshire
Irish Times
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Ray Burke on how the books of almost every Irish writer of note were banned in the last century
President Michael D. Higgins told a gathering of librarians that he was hosting at a Bloomsday Garden Party at Áras an Uachtaráin last June about a visit he made to the public library in Galway shortly after he moved there more than 60 years ago to work for the Electricity Supply Board before enrolling at the local university. Having climbed the stairs to the library (housed at that time in Galway's 19th century county courthouse) he asked if he could borrow the book 'Why I Am Not a Christian' by the British philosopher and Nobel Literature Laureate Bertrand Russell. He said that the librarian told him: 'I cannot give you that book'. He said that when he asked her why not, she replied: 'Because it would not be good for you'. The impromptu denial suffered by the future President of Ireland was possible under the Censorship of Publications Acts that dated back to 1929 and that prohibited the importation into Ireland of more than 12,000 publications, mainly books or magazines, that were deemed by State-appointed censorship boards to be 'indecent or obscene' and likely 'to corrupt or deprave'. READ MORE Almost every Irish writer of note had their books banned under the acts during the last century, irrespective of their international renown. Brendan Behan used to quip that in Ireland he was 'the leader of the banned'. Edna O'Brien had hardback first editions of her early novels confiscated by customs officers at Dublin Airport in 1966 when she arrived from London to attend a debate on censorship. Galway libraries had been banning books even before the Censorship Acts came into force. 'Every effort has been made by the committee to ensure that no books of an objectionable nature should be allowed to circulate', the minutes of the first meeting of the Galway County Council Libraries Committee in May 1926 state. At the same meeting, the committee – successor to the County Galway Carnegie Libraries – approved a report from the chief librarian that said: 'No little difficulty has been experienced in book selection, particularly in dealing with works of fiction as the general tendency in recent years of authors has lain more in the realm of sex, psychoanalysis, and other objectionable studies totally extraneous to any story'. In February 1927, the committee resolved that copies of all books recommended for purchase be supplied 'to each member of the committee, the [Catholic] Archbishop of Tuam, and the Bishop of Galway'. Two months later it invited the two bishops to submit lists of books for purchase. An early-1950s annual meeting of the committee noted: 'It was proposed by county councillor Tom King, seconded by Tadg O'Shea, and resolved that printed slips be inserted in every book issued at headquarters, branches and centres, asking readers to draw the attention of the county librarian 'to any objectionable book' and that lists of books for purchase be submitted to the book selection sub-committtee (which included a number of Catholic priests). This may explain how Tom Kenny, of Kennys Bookshop in Galway, came into possession of a rare copy of James Joyce's 'Ulysses. 'It was a surprise some years ago when we bought an elderly local priest's library to discover a two-volume paperback set of Ulysses' by James Joyce which was published by the Odyssey Press. We got an even bigger shock when we opened the flyleaf and discovered the signature ` + M. Browne 1938′ – Cross Michael himself, the bishop', Tom has recalled. An earlier, even-rarer copy of Ulysses had been censored by immolation in Galway shortly after its publication in 1922. Joyce sent a first edition to another Galway bookseller, Frank O'Gorman, in whose printing works Joyce's partner and future wife, Nora Barnacle, may have worked occasional, casual shifts. It was inscribed 'To Frank, with best wishes, Nora and Jim', but Frank O'Gorman's mother promptly burned it. Her grandson Ronnie, a respected local historian and founder of the Galway Advertiser freesheet, last year donated his collection of rare and valuable books to the University of Galway shortly before his death after an illness. It included an expensively acquired first edition of Ulysses and also a limited first edition of the book with illustrations by the French artist Henri Matisse, signed by both the artist and by Joyce. A few months before Ronnie O'Gorman's death, the then minister for justice, Helen McEntee, announced, in November 2023, that she had obtained government approval to repeal the Censorship of Publications Acts. She acknowledged that censorship boards 'are of limited relevance in a modern society'.
BBC News
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Front Row Daisy Goodwin on her play about the late Queen and her dresser
Daisy Goodwin discusses her debut play, By Royal Appointment, which stars Anne Reid as Queen Elizabeth and Caroline Quentin as her dresser, and which opens this week at Theatre Royal, Bath. The life and legacy of Irish novelist playwright and poet Edna O'Brien is discussed by writer Jan Carson and the director of the documentary Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story, Sin?ad O?Shea. And we hear from the curator of Design & Disability, an exhibition at the V&A in London which showcases the contributions of Disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent people to contemporary design and culture since the 1940s. Plus Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst pays tribute to American writer Edmund White, whose death has just been announced. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan
Daily Mail
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Profile of the controversial Irish author Edna O'Brien, with her diaries read by Jessie Buckley 2024
