Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:


A Sultan in Palermo, by Tariq Ali; Verso
Ali's characters are masters at negotiating their complex society whether as Muslims in a Christian regime, peasants in a feudal system, or women in a patriarchal world. Their power, though contingent and temporary, comes from solidarity - it is by banding together and considering the common good that Ali's characters are able to effect meaningful, if short-lived, change. In the end, this novel speaks to the power of human ingenuity to find non-violent means to subvert the hegemonic order. -Liz Winer




Landscapes of War, by Juan Goytisolo; City Lights
For over three decades now, Juan Goytisolo's war against conformity has been a beautiful and courageous thing to behold. Whereas Spanish readers can read Goytisolo regularly, the provincial character of contemporary Anglophone culture deprives us of his observations on Islamic culture and society. Goytisolo's reflections make disturbing reading. They could not be further removed from the banal homilies on the plight of particular peoples that grace the Western media in times of crisis and are forgotten. (Intro.)





Storms: My Life with Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac, by Carol Ann Harris; Chicago Review Press
This is a fascinating look at the mega-success of Fleetwood Mac in the mid-1970s, after the former British blues band recorded the laid-back rock songs of guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks that made the album Rumours one of the most popular of its era. Buckingham was arguably the most talented member of the group, as well as its most unstable. At once arrogant and insecure, he was lost in a haze of substance abuse and ego in 1977 when the band's magnum opus, Rumours, made them international megastars.