Dalkey Book Festival Directors, Sian Smyth, Oliver McCabe and David McWilliams
As one of Ireland’s foremost economists, it is no surprise David McWilliams is conjuring up ways of tackling the recession. What may be surprising, however, is his current method of choice.
McWilliams is a resident of Dalkey, the sleepy village in south county Dublin, which may be best known for its rich and famous inhabitants, but boasts an equally rich literary history.
When confronted with the effects recession was having upon the village, McWilliams and his colleagues in the Dalkey Business Group decided their best course of action would be to capitalise on that literary history.
An open brainstorming session through McWilliams’ column in the Irish Independent led to a solution in the form of the Dalkey Book Festival.
As it transpires, being famous does not preclude one from civic responsibility, and the astounding sense of community displayed in the short time since the festival’s inception has resulted in a programme of events guaranteed to pique the interests of even the most casual literary enthusiast.
From the 18 to 20 June, some of Ireland’s finest writers will deliver readings, talks and more in Dalkey.
Clearly designed with an eye on keeping everyone happy, the events range from the innocent to the macabre; and the high brow to the comic.
David McWilliams and some happy children reading
While Ireland as a whole is well represented on the bill, the organisers are keenly aware of the town’s own literary heritage – with tributes being paid to many of Dalkey’s famous residents past and present. Playwright Bernard Farrell will celebrate the life of the late Hugh Leonard, while Maeve Binchy and Gordon Snell will also be present to give readings.
Not one to hand over all of the spotlight, the town itself has its own degree of celebrity- having provided the backdrop for a prophesising St Augustine, and a crime-fighting James Joyce in Flann O’Brien’s Dalkey Archive. This great work of philosophical absurdity will be explored, both literally and figuratively, in a walk through the novel’s locations, curated by Eamon Morrissey.
Sparing no opportunity to take advantage of their surroundings, the organisers will indulge their gothic side, with a midnight performance of Edgar Allen Poe’s Cask of Amontillado in the ruins of St Begnet’s Church. In contrast, the Vico nightclub will provide a suitable stage for the infamous Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, as he recalls his exploits and escapades from his time as DJ at the club.
With the season that is in it, the festival will dutifully acknowledge that the world is currently football mad. Eamon Dunphy and Des Cahill will stop by to discuss the twentieth anniversary of Ireland’s famous World Cup ’90 campaign.
Younger readers will also be kept busy, with frequent readings in the local libray and a production of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince at the Town Hall. Other highlights of the weekend include talks from Joseph O’Connor, John Connolly, John Waters and Conor McPherson.
The Dalkey Book Festival Logo
The Dalkey Book Festival is a manifestation of a community’s response to challenging times and as events draw to a close on Sunday evening the festival will hold a talk, chaired by McWilliams on the concept of local communities fighting back.
If their own example is anything to go by, there certainly seems to be enough fighting spirit to go round; and if they can’t inspire you, at the very least they will keep you entertained.
You can explore the full programme of events for the Dalkey Book Festival here.
About Robert Maguire
Robert Maguire is a musician and freelance journalist. A self-professed jack of all trades, he has studied film and psychology; worked in bookselling, and been involved in music for several years.
As a writer, he has contributed to several online publications, including Egoeccentric and Connected Magazine.
As a musician he performs with the Irish based alternative-rock band Clockwork Noise.
You can contact Robert at maguire.robert[at]gmail.com
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To E Or Not To E: A Beginner’s Guide To iPad Ereading Apps
And with Apple‘s much heralded iPad finally launching on these shores, we decided to take a look at some of the various apps available for reading books on your iPads, iPods and iPhones, and determine which, if any, are worth their salt.
All reviewed Apps are available for free on the iTunes App Store. Our thanks to O2 Ireland for lending us an iPad for testing. We downloaded our books & apps using their 3G simcard.
A version of Amazon’s popular Kindle reader, this app’s great strength is undoubtedly its selection of titles. Using Safari it links directly to your Amazon account, offering a choice of over 400,000 books, and allows you to download sample chapters before you buy.
Kindle has one of the most appealing interfaces- they’ve recognised that swiping seems to be the most intuitive way of turning a page, a feature which some developers have criminally failed to include.
As far as features go, it sticks to the basics, with the ability to bookmark pages, search text, and change the font size and colour. As a basic eReader, Kindle does the trick nicely without many frills attached.
Produced by one of the lesser known developers in the field, iFlow apps come as individual books or collections. So rather than having your library stored together under one neat icon, each title takes up its own space on your browser.
Furthermore, the iFlow range is rather limited, covering primarily classics, and educational texts (philosophy, psychology, etc.). What the iFlow reader does have in its corner, however, is its unique interface.
Utilising the accelerometer, the app scrolls the text along the screen, with the degree of tilting determining the speed of the scrolling. For ease of reading, this this method is by far the most natural. I’ve already gotten through two novels…
When it comes to customisation, Stanza is king. No other app offers the sheer range of options to make your reading experience exactly the way you want it. As well as the basics, Stanza goes a step further- offering almost as much options as a word processor.
Don’t like the line spacing? You can change it. Margins irritating you? No Problem. The somewhat frustrating problem of automatic page rotation is dealt with (why Apple never considered that someone would look at their iPhone while lying down is beyond me), with the ability to lock the page in landscape or portrait mode.
Social networking fans can immediately share what they’re reading through facebook or twitter via a menu of shortcuts which, of course, you can customise.
Arguably its most convenient addition is the concept of assignable hot-keys. The user can designate an action to a particular touch or movement- for example, using the classic pinch and spread motion to adjust font size.
With a wide selection enabling downloads from a variety of eBook retailers, Lexcycle seem to have covered all the bases, providing one of the best eReading apps available. (Lexcycle was acquired by Amazon in 2009)
Kobo opens not with a list of names, but with a bookshelf, providing one of the most visually appealing interfaces of any reading app, and one which lends itself well to browsing multiple titles.
The experience of Kobo holds up well beyond the opening screen, with a number of ways of going from page to page. This seems to be its main area of customisation, with the other options being quite basic (font size, brightness, etc.).
In offering extra page turning options it pushes itself ahead of basic reading apps, but some of these choices are impractical to the degree that they become useless (manual scrolling??). As far as selection is concerned, Kobo fares very well, and once you’ve created a Kobo account you can purchase and download titles directly through the app itself.
While Dostoyevsky is all well and good, an occasional foray into some lighter eReading might be needed to clear the head. For those moments, there’s a wide selection of comic reading apps available, and Marvel has produced one of the snazziest.
Comics, quite simply, are amazing to read on an iPad. The screen lends itself fabulously to the images, and the technology offers a number of interesting ways to get through the story. For example, this app offers animated transitions, where the panels are displayed one by one, offering a dynamic reading experience well suited to the subject matter.
The app also capitalises on the periodical nature of comic books, offering an update service similar to podcast management, where new issues of subscribed series are automatically downloaded and added to your library. As far as the iPad is concerned, this is one area where the full potential of the medium is explored, and to great effect.
Apple’s own reading app is cosmetically appealing, offering a bookshelf interface similar to Kobo, but endeavors to offer a customisation level similar to Stanza. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite manage to win out in either category, but provides a solid app with several interesting features nonetheless.
Its actual reading interface is one of the most appealing available, particularly when viewed on the iPad, and provides one of the most generally pleasurable reading experiences. Among its attempts at offering functions beyond the basics, iBooks offers a dictionary, accesible through double tapping a word.
While convenient, the strength of this app lies in its style, and its selection, which offers tens of thousands of titles through Apple’s iBookstore (though the selection for Ireland is currently only Public Domain works, this should change soon).