Vastly entertaining and outright hilarious, Paul Murray’s debut heralds the arrival of a major new Irish talent. His protagonist is endearing and wildly witty–part P. G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, with a cantankerous dash of A Confederacy of Dunces’ Ignatius J. Reilly thrown in. With its rollicking plot and colorful characters, An Evening of Long Goodbyes is a delightful and erudite comedy of epic proportions. Charles Hythloday observes the world from the comfortable confines of Amaurot, his family estate, and doesn’t much care for what he sees. He prefers the black-and-white sanctum of classic cinema–especially anything starring the beautiful Gene Tierney–to the roiling and rumbling of twenty-first-century Dublin. At twenty-four, Charles aims to resurrect the lost lifestyle of the aristocratic country gentleman–contemplative walks, an ever-replenished drink, and afternoons filled with canapés as prepared by the Bosnian housekeeper, Mrs. P. But Charles’s cozy existence is about to face a serious shake-up. His sister, Bel, an aspiring actress and hopeless romantic, has brought to Amaurot her most recent–and to Charles’s mind, most ill-advised–boyfriend. Frank is hulking and round, and resembles nothing so much as a large dresser, probably a Swedish one. He bets on greyhounds and talks endlessly of brawls and pubs in an accent that brings tears to Charles’s eyes. And, most suspiciously, his entrance into the Hythlodays’ lives just happens to coincide with the disappearance of an ever-increasing number of household antiques and baubles. Soon, Charles and Bel discover that missing heirlooms are the least of their worries; they are simply not as rich as they have always believed. With the family fortune teetering in the balance, Charles must do something he swore he would never do: get a job. Booted into the mean streets of Dublin, he is as unprepared for real life as Frank would be for a cotillion. And it turns out that real life is a tad unprepared for Charles, as well.
WINNER OF THE EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE 2016 A comic masterpiece about love, art, greed and the banking crisis, from the author of Skippy Dies What links the Investment Bank of Torabundo, www.myhotswaitress.com (yes, hots with an s, don't ask), an art heist, a novel called For the Love of a Clown, a four-year-old boy named after TV detective Remington Steele, a lonely French banker, a tiny Pacific island, and a pest control business run by an ex-KGB man? You guessed it . . . The Mark and the Void is Paul Murray's madcap new novel of institutional folly, following the success of his wildly original breakout hit, Skippy Dies. While marooned at his banking job in the bewilderingly damp and insular realm known as Ireland, Claude Martingale is approached by a down-on-his-luck author, Paul, looking for his next great subject. Claude finds that his life gets steadily more exciting under Paul's fictionalizing influence; he even falls in love with a beautiful waitress. But Paul's plan is not what it seems-and neither is Claude's employer, the Bank of Torabundo, which inflates through dodgy takeovers and derivatives-trading until-well, you can probably guess how that shakes out. The Mark and the Void is a stirring examination of the deceptions carried out in the names of art, love and commerce - and is also probably the funniest novel ever written about a financial crisis.
Everyone experiences failure in some form or fashion through the span of his or her life; it's just a natural part of living. Even though failure occurs across a broad spectrum of human dynamics, its result is often manifested in the private areas of one's life or in the public sphere of society. Dr. Murray illustrates through personal experiences and Scripture how the potential for human success often lies within the kernel of our most extreme failings. Broken is the story of one man's failure and how he chose to rise above the circumstances resulting from the disgrace that followed. Using the Bible as a foundation, Dr. Murray identifies Biblical leaders who failed and how they were able to gain wisdom through their personal failures. He infuses his own life experiences with constructive steps and Biblical insights for picking up the pieces after the fall. Although Broken incorporates very practical advice - outlining sequential steps in the process of turning failure into success - it is so much more than just a self-help book. Readers are offered a glimpse into eternity and are encouraged to choose the narrow pathway leading to heaven's door. Aspects of our human frailty are sensitively exposed, helping both those who find themselves judging others, as well as those being judged, to discern a better method of dealing with failure. The path to restoration is clear and well defined in Scripture for those who choose true repentance and a contrite heart before God. Dr. Murray explains why failure does not have to be final. He also presents the fascinating insight that what we do in secret are seeds planted in our souls - using our private time to build personal integrity can prevent a mindset which encourages failure. The focus of Broken includes advice on how to move past your failure, with Biblical examples showing how God's servants managed this. Replicating the wisdom of these ancients and distilling it into the fast pace of our modern lives, Dr. Murray sets his readers on a path to rebuilding their credibility after having experienced failure. Picking up the broken pieces of a life shattered by failure is not an overnight process. It needs time and a well-constructed plan of action. Broken presents this plan, incorporating a Biblical perspective for the individual who actively seeks restoration, but which also includes the role of leadership in restoration. Those in positions of leadership will benefit from the wise counsel presented. The journey of personal transformation offered in this book will reveal to you why God allows human beings to experience failure. Ultimate success is often achieved as a result of overcoming past failures. Those who are able to grasp this simple truth will also understand that using and sharing the wisdom gained through failure might actually be part of God's plan for your life. Redolent with practical and Biblical themes of encouragement and success, Broken emphasizes the fact that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him
Increasingly the contemplative tradition in Christianity is being seen as essential to our understanding of Christianity itself. Here is the book to explain all.
One of The New York Times Top 10 Books of the Year Winner of the An Post Irish Book of the Year, the Nero Gold Prize, and the Nero Book Award for Fiction Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Writers' Prize for Fiction Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction One of The New Yorker's Essential Reads of 2023. One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2023. One of TIME's 10 Best Fiction Books of the Year. Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, The Economist, New York Public Library, BBC, and more. From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart. The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away. If you wanted to change this story, how far back would you have to go? To the infamous bee sting that ruined Imelda’s wedding day? To the car crash one year before Cass was born? All the way back to Dickie at ten years old, standing in the summer garden with his father, learning how to be a real man? The Bee Sting, Paul Murray’s exuberantly entertaining new novel, is a tour de force: a portrait of postcrash Ireland, a tragicomic family saga, and a dazzling story about the struggle to be good at the end of the world.
Ruprecht Van Doren ist ein übergewichtiges Genie, seine Hobbies sind komplexe Mathematik und die Suche nach außerirdischer Intelligenz. Mit Daniel ›Skippy‹ Juster teilt er sich ein Zimmer im Turm des Seabrook College, einer altehrwürdigen Dubliner Institution, in der sich keiner so richtig für die beiden interessiert. Aber als Skippy sich in Lori verliebt, eine Frisbee spielende Schönheit aus der Mädchenschule gegenüber, haben auf einmal alle möglichen Leute Interesse – auch Carl, Teilzeit-Drogendealer und offizieller Schulpsychopath. Während seine Lehrer mit der Modernisierung kämpfen und Ruprecht versucht, ein Portal in ein paralleles Universum zu öffnen, steuert Skippy, im Namen der Liebe, auf einen Showdown zu – in Form eines fatalen Doughnut-Wettessens, das nur eine Person überleben wird...
Aquinas at Prayer draws attention to important aspects of Aquinas's life and work which have been all too often overlooked or forgotten. Today Aquinas is almost exclusively regarded as an outstanding scholastic philosopher and theologian. But what is little known is that Aquinas was, first and last, a teacher of the Bible - a Master of the Sacred Page. Moreover there is a distinctly mystical character to his theology. And, as a writer, he was not only a poet but, arguably, the greatest Latin poet of the Middle Ages. The primary focus of this most engaging new book is to explore the question of Aquinas's own practice of prayer and his teaching on prayer in his commentaries on the Psalms and St Paul. The book is strengthened by quotations from Aquinas in fresh translations.
Written with both passion and precision, God's Spies is a work that will be welcomed by anyone interested in the vital interplay between poetry and religion. The authors represented, including poets such as Michelangelo, St Francis of Assisi, Charles Péguy, Dante and Shakespeare, all possess one great and surprising quality in common: audacity. All of them in their work offer fresh and unforeseen perspectives on life and literature. Some of these authors are religious in the strict meaning of the word, their work indicating a devout turning away from the distractions of the world to focus on God. Others, in contrast, are poets whose work is distinguished by a remarkable visionary focus on the many small and great dramas of life, attending with bright, imaginative genius to what Shakespeare calls 'the mystery of things'.
The best biography of Richard III that has been written."—A. L. Rowse, Chicago Tribune Paul Murray Kendall's masterful account of the life of England's King Richard III has remained the standard biography of this controversial figure.
These Black Stars marks a return to poetry by Paul Murray after a silence of almost thirteen years. With a challenging and vulnerale spareness of language, the poems enact a journey from enchantment and loss through self-knowledge into a new state or stage of acceptance and illumination. What most distinguishes these poems is their brave confrontation with the black absolutes of our lives and the unexpected music they make out of grief and loss. --Dedalus.
Why does Skippy, a fourteen-year-old boy at Dublin's venerable Seabrook College, end up dead on the floor of the local doughnut shop? Could it have something to do with his friend Ruprecht Van Doren, an overweight genius who is determined to open a portal into a parallel universe using ten-dimensional string theory? Could it involve Carl, the teenage drug dealer and borderline psychotic who is Skippy's rival in love? Or could "the Automator"--the ruthless, smooth-talking headmaster intent on modernizing the school--have something to hide? Why Skippy dies and what happens next is the subject of this dazzling and uproarious novel, unraveling a mystery that links the boys of Seabrook College to their parents and teachers in ways nobody could have imagined. With a cast of characters that ranges from hip-hop-loving fourteen-year-old Eoin "MC Sexecutioner" Flynn to basketball-playing midget Philip Kilfether, packed with questions and answers on everything from Ritalin, to M-theory, to bungee jumping, to the hidden meaning of the poetry of Robert Frost, Skippy Dies is a heartfelt, hilarious portrait of the pain, joy, and occasional beauty of adolescence, and a tragic depiction of a world always happy to sacrifice its weakest members. As the twenty-first century enters its teenage years, this is a breathtaking novel, in this striking three-volume boxed set, from a young writer who will come to define his generation.
A short but intense and beautifully written study of the ‘Hail Mary’ by the Irish theologian, poet and Dominican priest, Paul Murray. For almost an entire millennium the most commonly repeated prayer in the Church, apart from the Our Father, has been the Hail Mary. It’s a prayer that, with great simplicity and ease, brings us at once into the mystery of God incarnate, the mystery of Jesus, son of Mary. For countless numbers of people over the centuries it has proved to be a threshold of grace, a real opening into the mystery and meaning of God’s love, a ‘holy door’. The Hail Mary is a prayer which is easy to say, easy to pray. But as Paul Murray shows in this short book it also has a radiance and depth of theological truth. "My hope in writing this tiny book is that, by giving space to some of the most moving and most profound reflections ever written on the Hail Mary, a door will open for the reader into a world in which the strenuous task of thinking and the easeful grace of feeling can both be considered sacred, and where wisdom and enchantment, theology and devotion, are found, at core, to be one and the same thing.
Names and celebrates aspects of the Dominican tradition that are at the very core of its spirituality. One of the things which has characterized the Dominican spirit from the beginning is a sense of openness to the world. This book presents the Dominican vision of life.
Paul Murray OP examines the depth and range of Catherine's vision of freedom, claiming that until now her understanding of freedom has received surprisingly little attention from readers and scholars. Murray demonstrates that a preoccupation with freedom is the 'fire' behind almost every page and paragraph she writes, and as a result freedom becomes her veritable obsession. He explores the liberating character of Catherine's teaching, with particular attention given to her understanding of fear as one of greatest enemies of freedom. Murray highlights the importance of self-knowledge in the journey from bondage of freedom, and employs the rubric of the Dominican motto, To Praise, to Bless, to Preach; as a benchmark to examine the remarkable freedom of Catherine's life and thought.
Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) has long been marginalised as a failed Victorian Romantic whose writings on Japan were poetic but inconsequential; as a person, he emerges as a one-dimensional neurotic. In this new study, based on a wealth of hitherto unpublished sources, as well as a fresh reading of Hearn's writings, Paul Murray reveals a multi-faceted character of considerable depth, intelligence and literary skill. This is a book, therefore, that will appeal on many levels. The story of Hearn's life makes fascinating reading; his fantastic journey took him from conception outside marriage on a Greek island to a protected upbringing in Dublin; from a Gothic education in England to Cincinnati in the United States where, as Paddy Hearn, he established himself as a journalist of the macabre par excellence. In New Orleans, in the 1860s, he transformed himself into Lafcadio Hearn, litterateur and a man of the South. Finally after two years in the West Indies, he spent the last fourteen years of his life in Japan - arriving in 'the land of the gods' in the spring of 1890. Although it was always to be an ambiguous relationship with his adopted country, Hearn gave to the world some of the most valuable and enduring insights into Japanese society and culture that continue to stand the test of time. For students of the Anglo-Irish tradition, a little explored strand of Hearn's heritage, this book is also essential reading, providing substantial insights into Hearn's mastery of the literary horror genre. Equally, students of Japan will want to understand, for the first time, the make-up and motivation of one of its greatest ever Western interpreters.
Nowhere in the Bible does God promise an instant fix. Our culture is so insistent on immediate results. We want fast food, quick service, and instant pudding. We hate waiting in line for anything. If our smartphone is 4G, we must have 5G. Everything must be quicker and faster. It's not that God can't, won't, or never does an instant fix. "Lazarus, come forth" was an instant fix. Lazarus got up and walked out of the tomb. "Tabatha, arise," and the little girl got up off her deathbed. That was an instant fix. "Be still," and the winds and the waves instantly became calm. That's 5G speed! But instant fix is not the norm in the Christian life. Instant healings are not typical, and it has nothing to do with a lack of faith. A jackpot lotto winning is seldom an excellent financial solution to your problems, and justice is rarely immediate nor swift. That is just the way things are in a broken world. The same was true for Israel. It took seven long, grueling years to conquer Canaan. Later in the book, we will see why it took so long. The norm for gaining victory over sin and becoming mature in our faith usually takes a lifetime. As someone once said, "We are all men under construction." As long as we are still above ground, God is still working on us. Israel has now conquered the promised land. There are no more threats from the various Canaanite tribes, and there is peace across the land. Finally, after generations of waiting upon God to receive the promised inheritance, the spoils of the land are about to be divided among the tribes of Judah. But with each inheritance there comes some serious responsibility. Each individual tribe was to finish the job of removing the enemy for the land they inherited. The mandate was not "live and let live" or "indenture the indigenous" or "settle for coexistence." The remnant of enemy left in the land was to be completely driven out. To fail to do that would threaten Israel's very existence in the promised land. Were they willing to finish the job? The obstacles loomed large, but God had proven His ability to move mountains. Starting strong does not win any race. The race is won when you cross the finish line. Read on and learn how to finish the race. The Fruit of Righteousness (Joshua 12-14) is the third and final part of the three-part series Pagans, Prostitutes and Other Problems: A Simple Man's Commentary on Joshua.
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