Jimmy Rabbitte is back.The man who invented the Commitments back in the eighties is now forty-seven, with a loving wife, four kids ... and bowel cancer. He isn't dying, he thinks, but he might be.Jimmy still loves his music, and he still loves to hustle - his new thing is finding old bands and then finding the people who loved them enough to pay money for their resurrected singles and albums. On his path through Dublin he meets two of the Commitments - Outspan, whose own il...

This is the heart-rending story of a woman struggling to reclaim her dignity after a violent, abusive marriage and a worsening drink problem. Paula Spencer recalls her contented childhood, the audacity she learned as a teenager, the exhilaration of her romance with Charlo, and the marriage to him that left her powerless. Capturing both her vulnerability and her strength, Doyle gives Paula a voice that is real and unforgettable.

Paddy Clarke is ten years old. Paddy Clarke lights fires. Paddy Clarke's name is written in wet cement all over Barrytown, north Dublin. Paddy Clarke's heroes are Father Damien (and the lepers), Geronimo and George Best. Paddy Clarke has a brother called Francis, but Paddy calls him Sinbad and hates him because that's the rule. Paddy Clarke knows the exact moment to knock a dead scab from his knee. Paddy Clarke loves his Ma and Da, but it seems like they don't love each other, and Paddy's ...

This volume brings together under one cover Roddy Doyle's three acclaimed novels about the Rabbite family from Dublin. The Commitments traces the rapid rise and even more rapid fall of Jimmy Rabbite Jr's unusual soul band. In The Snapper, Sharon Rabbite's pregnancy sparks off intense speculation among her friends and family, but she is determined to reveal the identity of the father in her own time. The Van, set during Ireland's 1990 World Cup attempt, follows th...

A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle is a touching story about love, family, and the power of memories. This book is a celebration of life, legacy, and the unbreakable ties that bind us to those we cherish.Named a Best Book of the 21st Century (So Far) by KirkusThis heartwarming and poignant tale spans four generations of women in an Irish family. Twelve-year-old Mary O'Hara is a spirited Dublin schoolgirl who is bravely f...

From the author of the Booker Prize winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, a bold, haunting novel about the uncertainty of memory and how we contend with the past."It's his bravest novel yet; it's also, by far, his best." -- npr.org“The closest thing he’s written to a psychological thriller."– The New York Times Book ReviewJust moved into a new apartment, alone for the first time in years, Victor Forde goe...

This eclectic, funny, and moving book tracks a life lived in music and words. Paul Quarrington ruminates on the bands of his childhood; his restless youth, spent playing bass with the cult band Joe Hall and the Continental Drift; and his incarnation, in middle age, as rhythm guitarist and singer with the band Porkbelly Futures.Ranging through rock ’n’ roll, the blues, folk, country and soul, he explores how songs are made, how they work, and why they affect us so d...

Two old friends reconnect in Dublin for a dramatic, revealing evening of confidences--some planned, some spontaneous--in this captivating new book from the author of the Booker Prize-winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.Old friends meet up on a summer's evening at a Dublin restaurant. Both are now married with grown-up children, and their lives have taken seemingly similar paths. But Joe has a secret he has to tell Davy, and Davy, a grief he wants to keep from Jo...

Meet the Rabbitte family, motley bunch of loveable ne'er-do-wells whose everyday purgatory is rich with hangovers, dogshit and dirty dishes. When the older sister announces her pregnancy, the family are forced to rally together and discover the strangeness of intimacy. But the question remains: which friend of the family is the father of Sharon's child?

An historical novel like none before it, A Star Called Henry has marked a new chapter in Booker Prize-winner Roddy Doyle's writing. A subversive look behind the legends of Irish republicanism, at its centre a passionate and unforgettable love story, this novel is a triumphant work of fiction.Born in the slums of Dublin in 1902, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast. By the time he can walk he's out robbing, beggin...

Two men meet for a pint in a Dublin pub. They chew the fat, set the world to rights, take the piss… They talk about their wives, their kids, their kids’ pets, their football teams and – this being Ireland in 2011–12 –about the euro, the crash, the presidential election, the Queen’s visit. But these men are not parochial or small-minded; one of them knows where to find the missing Colonel Gaddafi (he’s working as a cleaner at Dublin Airport); they worry about Greek debt, the IMF and the bon...

In The Last Roundup Trilogy, Booker Prize-winner and bestselling author Roddy Doyle gives us a pulsing saga full of epic adventures, breathless escapes, star-crossed love, and an unforgettable Irish hero—Henry Smart.In A Star Called Henry, hailed as “Doyle’s best novel yet . . . a masterpiece, an extraordinarily entertaining epic” (The Washington Post), we meet a young Henry Smart on the dangerous streets of early 1900s Dublin, on his way to becoming an Irish Repu...