Shelf Life
Tony Bailie
Tony Bailie is a writer, poet and journalist who lives in Downpatrick, Co Down. His second novel is ecopunks, and as his first novel, The Lost Chord, was also published by Lagan Press in 2006. He has also had two collections of poetry published, Coill (2005) and Tranquillity of Stone (2010).
Favourite book from childhood
Watership Down by Richard Adams.
Book I didn't make it through
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. I tried two or three times and got in several hundred pages before somehow failing to pick it up again.
Secret reading vice
Science Fiction – mostly Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius novels, Robert A. Heinlein and Philip K. Dick, which makes me an official ‘Dickhead’.
Most under-rated book
Gaia – A New Look at Life on Earth by James Lovelock. The idea that the Earth and all life on it can be viewed as a single organism has its detractors but then individual humans are made up of different organs, limbs, cells etc. and we identify all those as a single entity. The central character in my last novel, ecopunks, was an eco-warrior and environmental issues formed a subplot so I read a lot of writers like James Lovelock as background material.
Most over-rated book
The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho – smaltz posing as unique spiritual insight.
Irish writer I always look out for
Hugo Hamilton, particularly his early novels. Not mad on his Pat Coyne stories, but redeemed himself big time with his second most recent novel, Disguise, which is probably my favourite.
One book I'd love to have written
2666 by Roberto Bolaño – there are five novels in this huge sprawling book, some are clearly linked, and others seem to stand on their own. It is a bit like looking at an abstract painting. Up close all the different parts have their own identity but only when you have finished and stand back can you see patterns sprawling across the canvas.
The book I go back to time and again
Blacklist Section H by Francis Stuart – there is always a slight cough of embarrassment mentioning Stuart because of his sojourn in Nazi Germany and those embarrassing radio broadcasts. This autobiographical novel covers those events and earlier ones, including his involvement in the Irish Civil War, his relationship with Maud Gonne’s daughter Iseult and WB Yeats and friendship with Liam O’Flaherty. He portrays himself as a flawed selfish character, but there is also a genuine awkward outsiderness about him, someone who refuses to be boxed in.
