If you’ve noticed a severe lack of posting around these parts, it’s because I’ve been deep in preparation for my upcoming trip to Ireland. I apologize for the lack of posts here & comments on other blogs. I leave tomorrow, and I am so excited for my road trip around Ireland! I have no idea if I’ll have a chance to post photos here during the trip, but either way, you can look forward to lots of photos & videos from Ireland when I return! For updates during my trip you can follow me on twitter @chowmeyow or @emilylovesbooks.

In the meantime, remember that you can still enter my giveaway to win a signed ARC copy of Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, right here. It will be open until August 18th.

Below are some vintage postcards from Ireland, found on the Library of Congress’s Flickr page.

Sláinte!

I list all my books purchased each month in my Polysyllabic Spree posts, but I’m so excited about three of my new book purchases that I must post about them now. :)

The first is Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks (not to be confused with Tony Hawk). This is next up on my list of travel memoirs about Ireland. In my experience, humorous travel memoirs are always best. On the back of the book, Tony Hawks was likened to Bill Bryson and Dave Barry, two people who take funny very seriously, so that’s promising. It was recommended to me by one of my Mom’s friends, who read it before she went to Ireland.

The second is Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis. I’m not sure how I was never really aware of Auntie Mame, because it was published in 1955 and has pretty much been extremely well loved by many since then. It was also a play, a Broadway musical, and a movie with Rosalind Russell. Shameful, really, that I was so in the dark about Auntie Mame. But anyway, I could tell by the cover, the title, and the fact that my friend Jon-With-Wonderful-Taste is reading it makes me confident that this will be a book that I adore. It’s also a bit Wodehouse-esque, which can only be a spectacular thing.

The third book is Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel’s new book. I was able to score a review copy at Strand yesterday, and I’m so excited to read it. I called my friend Laura yesterday to tell her that I just saw online that Strand has review copies in, and did she want me to pick her up a copy too? Her reply pretty much sums up how I feel too: “I just got goosebumps!”

So many great things to read, so little time!

Title: McCarthy’s Bar
Author: Pete McCarthy
Published: 2000
My edition: St. Martin’s Press Hardcover 2001
Borrowed from: Hoboken Public Library
Pages: 338

Synopsis (from his website): Despite the many exotic places Pete McCarthy has visited, he finds that nowhere can match the particular magic of Ireland, his mother’s homeland.  In McCarthy’s Bar, he journeys from Cork to Donegal.  Travelling through spectacular landscapes, but at all times obeying the rule, Never Pass a Bar That Has Your Name On It, he encounters McCarthy’s Bar’s up and down the land, meeting fascinating, friendly and funny people before pleading to be let out at four o’clock in the morning.

Through adventures with English crusties who have colonised a desolate mountain; roots-seeking, buffet-devouring Americans; priests for whom the word ‘father’ has a loaded meaning; enthusiastic Germans who ‘here since many years holidays are making’; and his fellow barefoot pilgrims on an island called Purgatory, Pete pursues the secrets of Ireland’s global popularity and his own confused Irish-Anglo identity.

Written by someone who is at once both insider and outsider, McCarthy’s Bar is a wonderfully funny, affectionate portrait of a rapidly-changing country.

I read this because: I’m currently obsessed with any and all things concerning Ireland.

My thoughts: I loved this book. As far as armchair traveling goes, Pete McCarthy is an excellent companion/guide. Not only does he take you along for the ride as he meanders through the west of Ireland, he also explores the experience of feeling completely at home in a place that isn’t your homeland. I learned quite a bit about Irish culture and Ireland while reading it, and laughed a lot at his dark and witty humor infused into his stories.

Sadly, when I was googling Pete McCarthy to see if I could find him on Twitter or some links to good interviews, I found out he died in 2004. He was 51. He only wrote one other book; he didn’t get the chance to write the third book he had been planning.

Book club worthy? Mostly just a fun book to read on your own, but potential for some good discussion on whether or not you can feel a stronger attachment and kinship with the country of your ancestors than the country you were raised in.

Follow up required: I’d like to go to Ireland, as soon as possible. :) I’d also like to read his only other book, The Road to McCarthy. (Not to be confused in any way with The Road by Cormac McCarthy.)

You might like this book if you like: Bill Bryson

Links to purchase: Indie Bound, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Depository, Strand

My favorite lines & passages:

There’s nothing like a couple of Italians staring at you to make you feel ashamed to be part of a nation that thinks polyester is a good fabric. (page 116)

Luckily I’ve trained myself over the years never to go anywhere without something to read, just in case someone turns up late, the meeting ends early, or I’m inadvertently imprisoned for 35 years and put in solitary confinement. (page 128)

The Celts believed that our world and the spirit world are very close, and that there are particular places of energy where the divide is very thin, and it’s possible to step across to the other side. (page 226)

I like reading in a pub rather than a library or study, as it’s generally much easier to get a drink. (page 258)

I think everyone has an inner voice, and we can all learn to listen to it. You don’t need to analyse where it comes from, but you can attune yourself to it. If you can learn to follow it, it will lead to fulfillment. That’s why I came here. (page 334)