Shelf Life
Brenda Liddy
Brenda Liddy recently completed her doctorate at the University of Ulster, after going back to education later in life. Her first book, Women’s War Drama in the Seventeenth Century is published by Cambria Press. She has taught English at the University of Ulster and is currently teaching English in the Northern Regional College.
Favourite book from childhood
Louisa May Alcott: Little Women. I’m probably a cross between Beth and Jo. I would concur with Alcott’s plain living and high thinking philosophy.
Book I didn't make it through
James Joyce :Ulysses.
Secret reading vice
Hello magazine (but only in the dentist’s waiting room as distraction therapy).
Most under-rated book
Is there such a thing? I think it’s about canonical versus non-canonical. That’s why I researched and wrote about war’s other voices, the women whose testimonies were either ignored or overshadowed. Also I found this interesting website http://neglectedbooks.com…what a great idea. If you cannot get mainstream attention… get notoriety by being on the neglected book website—a form of inverse snobbery. Then you could have the abandoned books website, the never finished book website—that’s why I love literature—it’s like a Russian doll, there’s always more inside. On a more serious note, I think it’s important to value our writers. When I was in Prague, I practically got a crash course on Franz Kafka, between the Kafka museum, tour and bookshop. Now that’s an idea for the city of culture—I’m buzzing with ideas already.
Most over-rated book
I am an independent critic but a bit non-committal on this one. I always find something to value in every book I pick up. After all, someone probably spent years writing it. I will say however that I think it’s imprudent to write your autobiography when you’re in your twenties or thirties. I think you should live your life first and then reflect on and distil the main events. However one of my students loves Jordan’s Being Jordan. I have just checked the Amazon website and there are 95 reviews for this book alone…some atrocious spelling in the reviews and the grammar…but hey, it gets people reading who would not otherwise be motivated…I am a great believer in starting where people are at…in the context of adult education. And to strengthen my point I have just googled Amazon’s listing for Milton’s Paradise Lost, and there are just two reviews. Maybe it’s the old debate, classical culture versus popular. Who is the arbiter? Middle aged, middle class professors? There is room both…no one has a monopoly.
Irish writer I always look out for
I read Paul Muldoon’s poetry. I also like Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde, Christina Reid, Anne Devlin, and Marie Jones. I have been so busy doing my doctoral research that I have missed out on a lot of contemporary writing. I intend to address this imbalance.
One book I'd love to have written
Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff is contemptible and deranged, but he evokes sympathy nonetheless.
The book I go back to time and again
Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’s Own. As Woolf says, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
