J.P.

A quick little update on my adventures in the shady world of secondhand book dealing. I managed to sell my Kenneth Branagh signed book last week, so I posted it off a few days ago. This morning I replaced it for sale with a book by J.P. Donleavy called An Author and His Image, The Collected Short Pieces. It is a nice hardback first edition 1997, so I hope it finds a good new home. Apart from Flann O’Brien I think J.P. is the funniest Irish writer of all time. Actually, I should say Irish American because although he lived in Ireland most of his life, he was in fact born in New York of Irish parents in 1926. After WW11 he moved to Ireland to study at Trinity College Dublin. He died in 2017 aged 91. I think my favourite books of his are The Ginger Man, A Singular Man and The Onion Eaters. I was reminded of J.P. recently because Shane MacGowan was a huge admirer of Him. (See the photo of Shane & J.P.) It was J.P.’s book A Fairytale of New York that inspired Shane to write his classic song of the same name. If you haven’t read any of his books, then I encourage you to do so. Cheers. 

Shane MacGowan & J.P. Donleavy.