Customer Rating:  
Summary: Unconvincing and absurd
Comment: Elsnocar was right. I bought this book in hardback when i first came out expecting it to be a 'journey within the IRA's soul' and what I got was a ridiculous account of a "date" with a girl from a republican family and an absurb description of Martin McGuinness that would convince no-one who'd met him for more than 15 minutes. It might fool some people in England, but not me.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Getting under the skin
Comment: This book stunned me. As a student of the conflict and ex-squaddie (Derry-early 70's). I rate this one of the BEST books I have ever read! For me, his unjudgemental style speaks volumes, especially when he listens to a tape of the the last confession of an informant, just before the poor sod gets the coup-de-grace from the IRA nutting squad.Another of his case studies is of a guy called Paddy Flood, a young Derry man brought up with the troubles erupting on his doorstep. Coming from a community with very little prospects in terms of jobs, votes and civil rights. He embraced republicanism as his truth - the way he saw the world. After school you riot, after Bloody Sunday the gunning down of people on a civil rights march, you join YOUR army. Flood's downfall was apparently down to his loyalty to a frail Wife. If you read this book, beware you are going to be challenged, so be forewarned you may have to ditch your prejudices.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very lazy and egotistical book
Comment: This was a major disappointment, the author reworks his newspaper articles to produce a very hit and miss book. Getting paid again in the process can't be bad - but the book is. A tendency to repeat himself and the bleedin' obvious does nothing for the fluency of the book either. The style is to interview upset relatives of the deceased and after he's left - rip holes in their interpretation of events or therories. Anyone seriously interested in this subject would find this low grade journalism and look elsewhere for a proper objective point of view. I am suprised this meglamaniac author has wrote for The Guardian etc. as he is so wrapped up in his own importance he begins to believe he is the subject matter. Sprinkled throughout are his crass observations of what he thinks, but frankly who cares? The reader is reminded ad nauseum that he is Irish, and he informs the reader all about his families Irish past as if that is his credentials for writing this hammy account. When he goes to interview a family about a member who had been killed he tries to chat up his sister and asks her on a date. We are treated to this date as well until it becomes glaringly obvious he is just exploiting her for his tatty book. I have read many accounts from journalists, combatants from both sides of this divide but this is pure exploitation of peoples suffering. The author has major ego problem that overshadows this book, I would not waste your money or your time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Comment: This is one of the best books about the north of Ireland that one can buy. Peter Taylor's books are very good for a British person looking in, while Tim Pat Coogan's come from a historically nationalist point of view. This I feel is the only book to get into the mind set of Republicans living in the Six Counties. It is an unbiased, critical analysis of all that the author sees around him. He fully acknowledges his own shortcomings as he is basically a war correspondent feeding off what is around him. He has fantastically entertaining stories with the IRA man Dermot Finucane and also shows the terrible narrowmindedness of these people that traps them in a victim's frame of mind. An excellent read and a must buy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A brilliant expose of the "The Troubles" at ground level.
Comment: For anyone who would like to peer behind the platitudes of the politicians, the ranting of the religious bigots and the high minded rhetoric of the zealots this is the book to read. Kevin Toolis has managed to obtain some remarkable admissions from the front line operators and their bosses. He also writes, with sensitivity, of those who have suffered from the deaths of their relatives.The suffering of the victims is placed within the context of confusion and cynicism on both sides of the divide. From a Southern Irish family himself Toolis is balanced and tough minded in his approach. On a personal level his feeling and sympathy for the victims is often poignantly expressed by descriptions of the quiet, relentless and unendending misery of the families of the dead.. I thought this was an honest and enlightening book. One of its virtues is that Kevin Toolis does not proselytise but enables readers to draw their own conclusions.
|
