There goes June, and no sign of a summer yet, but some pleasant evening skies to enjoy, as can be seen above. As ever, lots of things to read, watch, listen to and experience.

Books

A decent months reading. Grand Hotel Europe was first, an enjoyable if slightly long book using the fading glory of a hotel to talk about the problems facing Europe, including tourism, populism and immigration.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke was a wonderfully immersive work of fantasy that I’m still thinking about weeks later. I’m not a huge fantasy reader but I think I was really ready for this, more than I realised.

The Night Watchman by Louse Erdrich won the Pulitzer Prize and whilst there’s no doubting that it’s a fascinating story about the Chippewa people and the problems they faced, and Erdrich can craft a story, I found there were too many characters in this for me that flitted in and out, and it felt a bit disjointed.

If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know I’m a sucker for Australian Crime fiction, so The Island by Adrian McKinty was always going to be on my list, especially as I’d read some of Mckinty’s excellent Detective Sean Duffy series. This is a mad book, great fun altogether, I burnt through the pages in no time and just enjoyed it for what it is - a cracking thriller.

My final book of June was Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry. Six years of research went into this book, which largely focuses on the death of 74 schoolchildren, where grief turns to anger at school authorities and local government for not doing enough. Fascinating and heartrending.

TV

I enjoyed ‘Borgen’ when it first aired back in 2011, a political drama about Brigitte Nyborg, who becomes the first female Prime Minister of Denmark. It ran for three seasons and was an engrossing series full of political intrigue and backstabbing, as well as looking at juggling family life as a politician, the role of the spin doctor and TV news. Just really smart writing and a great drama. I wasn’t too sure when I heard Netflix had resurrected it for another series but I needn’t have worried. Geopolitics are to the fore, with a tug of war between China, Russia and the US over resources in Greenland, and Brigitte is still Foreign minister so she has a lot to deal with. Oddly prescient, great writing, great performances.

Sherwood on the bbc1 was a proper old school drama, dealing with a ex mining village in Nottinghamshire that still bore the scars (scabs?) of the strike, with the painful past brought back after a murder takes place. Superbly acted, the characters felt all too real and it had a lot to say about community and how Thatcher and her Neo liberal policies destroyed towns like Sherwood.

There’s probably been more TV that I’ve watched but to be honest I get ten minutes into so many shows and drop them. Life’s too short for the average. I usually check a few reviews to prevent me even wasting those ten minutes but occasionally a few slip through.

Sport

Sport probably seems odd in a book blog but I can’t let the month go by without referring to my visit to the great cathedral of Irish sport, Páirc an Chócaigh in Dublin. This was my first trip to the stadium in four years, a long spell, and I had the usual lump in my throat and something in my eye when I ascended the steps and saw the hallowed turf. This was my biggest crowd post covid - over 70,000 - and I can’t tell you how good it was to be part of something like this again.

In an insane, rip roaring contest, my beloved Ard Mhacha looked like they were going home with a whimper, before staging an insane comeback, inspiring delirium in some 35,000 of my fellow county folk, who painted Croke Park Orange. We ended up losing on penalties, so elation to despair, but by god if you don’t feel alive during experiences like this you mustn’t have a pulse. I was bereft for about ten minutes after the final whistle, but eventually recovered and felt glad to be involved with something like this, especially with family members making their first visit. Ard Mhacha abú!

Music

This was my only vinyl purchase of the month and hasn’t been off the turntable. Even though the four seasons is probably over familiar to us all by now, as it seems to be the holding music for most companies you ring these days, especially banks. Richter has reimagined it, using vintage synthesisers, and it’s beautifully played. Perfect music for an Irish summer, which is currently giving us a greatest hits tour of all four seasons.

Sad to hear of the death of Dennis Cahill, a great trad guitarist who played with the wonderful fiddler Martin Hayes, most notably in Irish trad supergroup, The gloaming. Been listening to this a bit.