Bibliofemme Bookclub An Irish Bookclub

Read in the week I left the shores of the Emerald Isle Michael Cronin’s new book, Time Tracks, makes for a poignant and gloriously funny mediation on Irish life.

Cronin’s world is not the ‘sell it to the tourists and Diaspora’ world of begora and begosh, thatched cottages and dancing at the crossroads. No it is filled with the wonderful little details that we all think individual to your own childhoods, adolescences and passing adulthood.

Intricate biscuit eating rituals, tea making, electric bar heaters and buses are just some of the things that come under Cronin’s humorous scrutiny. You can’t read this book without constant reference to your own experiences and memories, each story becomes laced with the time your friend taught you to make tea (only about a month ago!) because he wouldn’t drink your beige muck any more, an add hock list of all the pubs you’ve loved before, memories of “getting the phone in” and havin the neighbours queue up at the door and get you ma to dial up relatives, doctors, vets … and of course your own special execution in eating Kimberlys, Mikados and Coconut Creams.

In Cronin’s own words “this indeed is where the Remembrance of Things Past might begin, in the pockets of detail, the crumbs from our tables, the touchstones of memory”.

Don’t just send this to you Aunty in Amerikay. Savour these deliciously wrought nuggets of our lives for yourself.

A gem.