The Content Reader

"I imagined lamplight, shadows, soft voices, clothes put away, the low sound of late news on the radio. And I thought as I crossed the bridge at Baggot Street to face the last stretch of my own journey home that no matter what I had done, I had not done that." A sample of the wonderful writings of Tóibín. The Empty Family, is a short story collection on the family theme, which is a theme he mostly uses. Colm Tóibín seems to have so many different versions of what a family is. Here we find a unique set of characters and their various family relationships. So diverse, so different and so touching. Family relations are, as we know, not always the easiest kind of relationships. Tóibín manages to takes us along the various routes that can be called family ties and it is fascinating. His language is poetic and it is like you are on a river in a small boat that carries you with a slow current. The stories cover love between man and woman and man and man. Not only the feeling ...

This week my book beginning and page 56 come from one of my favourite authors, Colm Tóibín. It is his novel The Empty Family. I have not yet read it, but like the beginning so it is just to grab it and start reading. Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader " The moon hangs low over Texas. The moon is my mother. She is full tonight, and brighter than the brightest neon; there are folds of red in her vast amber. Maybe she is a harvest moon, a Comanche moon. I have never seen a moon so low and so full of her own deep brightness. My mother is six years dead tonight, and Ireland is six hours away and you are asleep. " The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice "She found that the manager of the studio knew the publican, the owner of the bar where they would film. He lived near the bar and was a regular customer. When she asked the manager if he thought she could have one extra day preparing the bar, clearing it of almost everything and then ...