Culch.ie

Broken Spine #22 – Unbroken Spine

Something different for this instalment of Broken Spine. As you may have read, today is World Book Day, a celebration of reading. A lot of us are avid readers, and make our way through many books each month. However, with so many books out there, it’s hard to find the right ones. Previous editions of [...]

The evolution of entertainment media

It occurred to me a few weeks ago, just how much I’ve changed the way I collect and store entertainment media. Eventually I put it down to 3 factors:
1. The reduction in the cost of hard drives has had a huge impact, making it possible to store an entire music (or movie) collection on one [...]

Broken Spine #21 – Christmas Reading

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without book vouchers! But if you plan on buying a book this week to read while you’re waiting for the turkey and spouts to cook on December 25th, Broken Spine is here to help you get in the festive mood. At least between the sheets… Of paper that is.
Recommended Reading #20 [...]

Broken Spine #20 (with competition)

Another load of BS, another competition. This week we have one copy of 2fm DJ Jenny Huston’s new musical tome In Bloom – Irish Bands Now to give away. Thanks to Emma over at Entertainment Architects for the prize. It’s marvellous!
Recommended Reading #18 – In Bloom – Irish Bands Now

In Bloom – Irish Bands Now [...]

Conventional Wisdom

Being annoyed that “real life” had conspired to keep me from three days of the four-day Irish Discworld Convention may not be the best excuse for my acquiring a monstrous hangover, but I don’t have much else to go on.
Well, apart from that the run-up to the weekend of the convention had been fraught with [...]

Broken Spine #19 (with Competition)

*** Competition Closed ***
*** Thank you to everyone who entered ***
This week’s Broken Spine looks at Ox-Tales, a charity collection of short stories from Oxfam, as well as providing two lucky readers the chance to win the books!
Recommended Reading #17
Ox-Tales are four brilliant collections of short stories from Oxfam with all the proceeds going to [...]

NaNoWriMo – The First Update

For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Originally launched as a US only online endeavour where budding authors would attempt to write a 50,000 word novel over the course of one single month. It has proved incredibly succesful and soon people from all over the world started [...]

Broken Spine #18

With just a few days to go til NaNaWriMo, this week’s recommended reading advises you on the don’ts and don’ts of novel writing.
Recommended Reading #15
In case you don’t know, every November budding authors around the world attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in just thirty days. It’s not just about moustache growing you know? [...]

RectoVerso #1 – The Audrey Niffenegger Interview

True bookworms will agree that you can never have too many books or book columns. With that in mind, RectoVerso’s thanks are due to Broken Spine’s Ronan , who agreed that there was room for another book column on Culch, and so it is that RectoVerso will be coming to you weekly, recommending, reviewing and [...]

Broken Spine #17

Recommended reading is back this week with the complete Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Actually no, but I must say I was tempted. Instead it’s a book about stories.
Recommended Reading #15: The Seven Basic Plots
The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories is a non-fiction book about storytelling. Wait, don’t leave. It’s far more interesting than it sounds. [...]

Look out! The Kindle is coming

Online retailing giant Amazon today announced its intention to start selling it’s popular Kindle electronic book reader to more than 100 countries around the world. Thankfully one of these countries is Ireland.

So far the device is only available from October 19th on Amazon.com and it priced at $279. When you factor in shipping ($20.98) and [...]

Broken Spine #16

Today, there’s no Recommended Reading. Instead this week’s Broken Spine is all a big countdown to the announcement of the Man Booker Prize winner.
Man Booker Prize 2009

Shortlist
AS Byatt – The Children’s Book
JM Coetzee – Summertime
Adam Foulds – The Quickening Maze
Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall
Simon Mawer [...]

Broken Spine #15 – Complete with Book Giveaway

*** Competition Closed ***
This week’s Broken Spine has a give away of an entertaining new Irish autobiography, from someone other than a GAA hero or former politician.
Ronan Smith – Lord of the Rams
Lord of the Rams is the autobiography/ memoir / autohagiography of a Munterconnaught, Co. Cavan native named Ronan Smith. He’s known to his [...]

Culchie Catch-Up (3)

Movies

The Dark Knight: Inception, Avatar, Defendor and Soloman Kane: Dr. Manfattan’s Movie News.
Two sheets to the wind: Top 5 Directorial Debuts
Rick has a date with destiny…sorry Disney.
“Up” – Darragh does a review…of sorts.
Niamh reviews Sam Mendes’ new file ‘Away We Go’.

Music

Julie Feeney’s new single & gig dates.
Fionn Regan’s [...]

Broken Spine #14

Save yourself hours or days reading the new Dan Brown, or else avoid it altogether by reading something far better with this week’s Broken Spine!

Recommended Reading #14: Roberto Bolaño – 2666
If you were in a bookshop today, there was no way you could have missed the furore over the new Dan Brown tome The Lost [...]

Fans of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, here’s http://6of3.com

Eoin Colfer has just announced the launch of his new venture, http://6of3.com
Colfer, the author of the fantastic Artemis Fowl series among many other books, was chosen to write a sequel to Hitchhiker’s Guide, and has written And Another Thing, released on October 12, 2009.

From the rather brilliant website :
You may not have [...]

Schwee Drool Etc Etc

Is it considered a fox paw to pilfer from blogs of fellow culchies? You know, I don’t care because this is Neil Gaiman’s home library and it’s just too wantsies-worthy to ignore.

Via Travors

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Broken Spine #13

Guess what this week’s recommended reading is all about? I picked four books in the end. And they’re all fab!
Recommended Reading #13: Books about…The Beatles
Two main reasons caused this week’s Broken Spine to appear today, on Wednesday (it’s actually usually meant to be here on a Tuesda). The first was that today (09.09.09) is Beatles [...]

An Evening of Reading, Music & Conversation with Nick Cave

“To celebrate the release of Nick Cave’s new novel The Death Of Bunny Munro, there will be a tour of live events throughout Europe. Taking place in intimate theatre settings these unique shows will be a mix of readings and live music, with Nick joined by Bad Seeds’ Warren Ellis and Martyn Casey.” [official blurb [...]

Review: The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke

Imagine there was a city where all the characters from classic fairytales lived. Imagine now that they’re not the chirpy primary coloured characters you’ve come to know from Disney movies: they’re dangerous, edgy, looking for a quick buck and are available for dirty deeds at the right price. Imagine against this grimey background a moral [...]