Books You May Not Know of…Irish Flavor

It’s Spring, and the flowers are budding, the birds are singing, and we’re all getting ready to pretend we’re a little Irish.  My second installment of “Books You May Not Know of” is An Embarassment of Riches by Gerald Hansen, a bowdy, irreverent look at one Irish family, their hi-jinks, and a long-time bitter rivalry between two sisters, one of whom has won the Irish lottery.

I learned of this book through a book recommendation on my Kindle a few years ago and decided to read it.  I remembered it recently and couldn’t find it; but when I searched by author, it came up.  I wondered if it was just an obscure book, but, truth be told, there are 176 reviews for it on Amazon, averaging four stars overall.

A Bawdy Spring Read

Be forewarned:  in this book, nothing is sacred.

I laughed, I guffawed, I felt guilty for laughing.  This book almost seems to poke fun at Irish culture, or maybe just Irish stereotypes, and I kept wondering if I was wrong to enjoy this.  Yet, I realized, every family has it’s embarrassments.  A Catholic daughter gets knocked up by a Proddy, a younger daughter pulls chaos at her christening; this is full of irreverent laughs that are sometimes a little over the top.  Seriously, there is never a dull moment in this story.  If you like that sort of thing, try this book out.  The author himself is Irish.

So, once again, I sing the praises of my Kindle and the Amazon book recommendation system, for bringing me great reads that none of my friends have ever heard of.  I once read somewhere it is good to read a lot, and to read wide.  It’s the best advice I ever received!

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Books You May Not Know of….

…But you ought to try!

Okay, I’ll be honest, I read Dogrun by Arthur Nersesian 17 years ago.  I was going through a break up and a re-evaluation of my life.  The main character goes through a sort if breakup, well, to be honest, her boyfriend dies.  She has to re-evaluate her life.  In addition, she has to look for a job and navigate the world of dating, during which she gets set up with a guy who has a foot fetish.

At any rate, the way she becomes single again is sort of dark and odd, but it had been a bad relationship.  She has a dog (which is awesome), and she lives in New York, hence, the need for a dog run.  If you enjoy laughing at things you shouldn’t laugh at and identify with characters whose lives seem like one screw up after another, you’ll like Dogrun.  It’s sort of a Bridget Jones mixed with Bernadette Peters’ in the movie “Slaves of New York.” It was published by MTV books, but I looked it up recently and it seems to have gotten another publisher.  Now, go find your copy and get ready to laugh from a dark, twisted side of you!

You can find this book at https://www.amazon.com/Dogrun-Arthur-Nersesian-ebook/dp/B003N3TUAM in Kindle or paperback.  It is not appropriate for kids under sixteen.

The subject of this book came up in a conversation with my boyfriend.  To make a long story short, I have loaned him the book because I thought it fit right in with his sense of humor.  Then, I got the idea for this post.  I picked this book up because of the blurb and the MTV books on the back (which is probably now defunct) and did not regret it.  After getting a Kindle in 2012, I started reading many of those books Amazon recommends, and I’ve been rewarded for that choice about 80% of the time.  There is beauty in choosing to read a book that everyone else may not have heard of yet.  This is why I started this post series.  I look forward to sharing more books with you!