Booking Passage
Contents:
I liked it, but some paragraphs went on and on- th The author also wrote The Undertaking- which is a favorite of mine. I liked it, but some paragraphs went on and on- the essays moved slowly. Jul 17, Maureen rated it it was amazing. Beautiful writing from an author that has a deep commitment to the land of his ancestors. This book is filled with poetry, pathos and good Irish humor.
- !
- Leben - Unterwegs (German Edition)!
- ?
Smoke curls from P. I make left at the bottom of the hill and back the narrow road past the fields and cattle and households of neighbors — Mahanys, Murrays, Keanes, McMahons, and Carmodys, Downses and Carmodys again. Booking Passage was a selection for our Thursday book club — the author Thomas Lynch, an American poet with Irish ancestry, compiling a collection of essays about finding home in the land of his forefathers. There were things I enjoyed very much about this book. Lynch is a fine writer.
I get the feeling that the author is still struggling for definition and so takes the easy way out. For instance, he seems to struggle with his Catholicism.
Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans
Without actually mentioning faith or God or his own beliefs, he brings it down the Priest abuse scandal and Magdalene houses. It just seemed like a cop-out to me. Lynch also announces his leftist politics as if they were absolute truths. Perhaps that is why he felt the need to side with the Catholic Church denouncers while still wanting to keep the traditions of his Irish church culture.
Everything needs to fit neatly into his secular identity. I found this annoying. So, I give a thumbs up to half the book and a thumbs down to the other half. Aug 18, Madeline Riley rated it really liked it. Nostalgic for both Ireland and a time when a relationship with it that Lynch describes was possible, this book kept my attention through each of the essays and revved my eagerness to get back to the island nation.
Thomas Lynch's retelling of his go-between lives in Ireland and in his Irish-American community in the United States felt familiar in its themes but deeply new in the poetic and personal storytelling he presents his ideas through.
Book Details
The essays range in topics from immigration, the potato Nostalgic for both Ireland and a time when a relationship with it that Lynch describes was possible, this book kept my attention through each of the essays and revved my eagerness to get back to the island nation. The essays range in topics from immigration, the potato famine or "starvation" as Lynch calls it , feminism, to the scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in recent decades.
Certain essays were more compelling than others--the chapter on the Catholic Church told through stories about his priest, great-uncle was a personal favorite--but the collection was unfailing in its delivery of thought-provoking musings on the character of Ireland and Irish Americans in their relationship to the homeland.
This book is heavy on that self-examination, along with the examination of writing, travel, and the cultures that influenced his life the most profoundly. Paperback , pages. Lynch's description of the "golf bag urn" is as hilarious as it is depressing. He writes of this desire to get home, his envy of those who have already secured a rebooking, and his interaction with a fellow traveler also waiting. The haves and the have-nots around the world maintain their status -- as victimizer and aggrieved -- on the narrowest of grounds of difference. Yet Lynch also writes poetry, and perhaps imagines that the same broad associative license extends to prose. I loved the folklore of the area and many of the true stories were heartbreaking.
Would recommend this book for any fans of Thomas Lynch or modern and contemporary Irish American history, but would suggest anyone interested in Lynch but not enthralled by this description to read The Undertaking instead. Sep 16, Rebecca Foster rated it really liked it Shelves: As an Irish-American, as comfortable at his inherited cottage in Moveen, Ireland as he is in Milford, Michigan where he is chief undertaker , Lynch is perfectly placed to muse on a legacy of two-way immigration.
May 29, Padraic rated it really liked it Shelves: Being a great Irish-American author is a little like being a great roof thatcher.
Who the hell cares? I wouldn't be surprised if the insurance companies managed to pass legislation as happened in Ireland and the UK outlawing the trade. So Tom Lynch will have to accept that few readers will find this book. It is a collection of essays, with the ups and downs that form suggests, on the Janus themes of emigration and exile, stasis and motion, heaving and hoing Because I am a fre Being a great Irish-American author is a little like being a great roof thatcher.
Because I am a freakishly pure 5th generation descendent of Irish ancestors all within 40 miles of one another, I found some of these essays profoundly moving. Then again, I'm a dying breed. Whether anyone else will enjoy this, I can't pretend to know. Apr 09, Jen rated it really liked it. I like Thomas Lynch's nonfiction in general, and I like the way he doesn't shy away from self-examination. This book is heavy on that self-examination, along with the examination of writing, travel, and the cultures that influenced his life the most profoundly. I found myself aching to write again as I read about his struggle to write and publish his work, and I'm seldom of that mind.
It's not as funny or humane as The Undertaking on the whole, though. It's an interesting read, but not poignant i I like Thomas Lynch's nonfiction in general, and I like the way he doesn't shy away from self-examination.
Booking Passage
It's an interesting read, but not poignant in the same ways as some of his earlier work. Sep 14, Beverly rated it really liked it Shelves: A poet who is a funeral director -- or a funeral director who is a poet? I can see where this book would be hard going for some people but there are several amusing stories and much truth. I would like to know what things Lynch found difficult about living in Ireland. Or did the fact that he was going back and forth so much help? Mar 20, Ralph rated it really liked it. There is a lot to think about with Lynch's accounts of Irish history mixed with relatively current events.
From every day life of his relatives in Moveen to the present problems of the Catholic faithful are addressed in this book. The final chapter on Irish poets seems to be rather self-indulgent though. Oct 20, Suzanne rated it it was amazing Shelves: You don't have to be Irish, or even American to enjoy this collection of essays, just human. I love Tom Lynch's voice, and his stories of how he came to be a part-time resident of Moveen, County Clare, even as he continues his life as a mid-western funeral director and writer.
Mar 11, Diane rated it it was amazing. Another loved book by this author. He talks of his life and times in Ireland and his philosophy on life. I liked his part about prejudice, using the term "otherness" when describing those who are discriminated against. Aug 22, Alice rated it liked it. Not quite as satisying as I'd hoped it would be May 16, Ken Shelton rated it it was amazing.
My favorite Tom Lynch book! I live Lynch and I live Ireland. Feb 09, Linda Kauppi added it. Lynch gives his reader much to think about in this collection of essays. I especially enjoyed the reflections on Ireland. Mar 07, Cor rated it it was amazing. This book is a beautiful example of what is wrought when careful contemplation is combined with stellar writing. Aug 10, Cathy Lind rated it it was amazing. Celebration of words and ideas related to our tribes. Mar 08, Bonnie rated it did not like it.
Trying to read only "Irish" in preparation for a family trip in June, I picked up this book. Ummmmm, don't spend money or time. Apr 25, Tammy Bolt-Werthem rated it it was amazing. I read this book on my trip to Ireland in April Great account of living between two countries. Love the fact that the author is in recovery and is both a poet and a mortician.
Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans and millions of other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans Paperback – June 17, Start reading Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans on your Kindle in under a minute. Lionel Shriver would have welcomed a little more discipline in Thomas Lynch's wide-ranging memoir, Booking Passage.
May 06, Kathy rated it really liked it. Yet Lynch also writes poetry, and perhaps imagines that the same broad associative license extends to prose. Yet after the dust settled, most savvy American writers got a grip. The world hadn't changed that much, and it was still possible to write a book about Ireland, for example. Not so Lynch, for the planes that ripped through the World Trade Center seem to have left permanent holes in his original proposal.
Into these holes he has poured philosophising about nearly anything, from the gender wars to the invasion of Iraq. As far as one can make out, Lynch's modest original concept was to write a memoir about having visited distant relatives in County Clare as a youth, and his regular visits to the country of his forebears over the span of 30 years, during which time the former European basket-case transformed itself from the land of soda bread and cabbage to a brave new world of focaccia and rocket.
This discipline of writing about something in particular instead of everything that has popped into the author's head in the course of a manuscript might just about have allowed the asides on Lynch's life as a Michigan funeral director, about which his observations are trenchant.
See a Problem?
Apparently, rather than being shaped by tradition and creed, contemporary American funerals are often themed like parks, and the bereaved may choose a casket and accessories garishly appointed with totems of the deceased's favourite pastime, such as golf. Lynch's description of the "golf bag urn" is as hilarious as it is depressing.
Of this new funereal formula, he writes: We mistake the ridiculous for the sublime. Instead of Methodists or Muslims, we are golfers now; gardeners, bikers and dead bowlers. The dead are downsized or disappeared or turned into knick-knacks in a kind of funeral karaoke.
- .NET Internationalization: The Developers Guide to Building Global Windows and Web Applications (Mic.
- We Are Not Alone: Why We Have Already Found Extraterrestrial Life.
- Review: Booking Passage by Thomas Lynch | Books | The Guardian.
- The Janitorial Contractors Bible (1)?
- ?
- An Irish rag-bag.
- Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Mary;
I told you he could write.