Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel
by Dermot Bolger, Maeve Binchy, Clare Boylan, Emma Donoghue, Anne Haverty, Kate O'Riordan, Deirdre Purcell
List Price:
Our Price: $2.90
You Save: $19.05 (87%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Anne Haverty, Clare Boylan, Deirdre Purcell, Dermot Bolger, Emma Donoghue, Kate O'Riordan, Maeve BinchyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-02-21
ISBN: 0156008661
Number of pages: 257
Publisher: Harvest Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780156008662
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel
Book Review: Surprise!
Summary: 5 Stars
I do not know what I expected. I had never heard of the book nor of the first book at Finbar's Hotel. Maeve Binchy's and Kate Riordan's novels are absorbing reading, so I thought "Fine, I'll read this."
First the ladies at Finbar's were definitely individuals--all of them dysfunctional, but they were winners in every tale. The book dealt with problems that were not specifically everyday problems, but they were familiar and modern. However,the resolutions to their problems were unusual and laughable. The endings always moved me to be ready to read the next story.
I liked the way continuity was maintained by insertions of details rather than studied incidents that interrupted the story.
The ladies were fallible, like all of us. I laughed at the lady who did not know what to do with the computer, so she typed the same characters constantly. I often think in a few years with technology changing so rapidly I will be sitting with the newest phone or Ipad or notebook, not having the faintest idea how to use it. I will have to consult my six-year-old grandson.
I recommend the book because it is a pleasure to read. I could relate to the characters, and I liked them.
Summary of Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel
A year has passed since the closing of Finbar's Hotel, a down-on-its-heels hotel on the Dublin quays. Now, with a rock star as its new owner, it has once more opened its doors-and Finbar's has become an ultra-chic gathering spot. Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel describes one night in its newly illustrious surroundings-a night filled with adventure and comic romp. In one room a man surreptitiously helps his wife's friend get pregnant, while next door a businesswoman battles her father. And down the hall, a nun struggles with the most important mission of her life. A fabulous mix of pathos and high humor, this is a sardonic tour of the gamut of human experience told by Ireland's finest modern storytellers. Maeve Binchy has written numerous bestsellers, most recently Tara Road. Dermot Bolger is the author of six novels and edited The Vintage Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction. Clare Boylan has written six novels and several nonfiction works, including The Literary Companion to Cats. Emma Donoghue is the author of Stirfry and Kissing the Witch, among other works. Anne Haverty's writing has been short-listed for the Whitbread Award. ?ilis N' Dhuibhne has published poetry, short fiction, children's books, and two novels. Kate O'Riordan writes for stage and screen, and has written two novels including The Bray House. Deirdre Purcell recently adapted her novel Falling for a Dancer as a four-part serial for BBC television.
In this almost-all-girl reprise of the collaborative fiction Finbar's Hotel, Dermot Bolger skillfully weaves together eight chapters, each contributed by a different Irish writer, into a light, coherent, and highly readable novel about a culture in flux. The old Finbar's had been a dark, unchanging place, a "grade two" businessman's hotel in Dublin smelling of gravy and overcooked meat. The impressive new establishment, owned and renovated by the not-quite-respectable Dutch wife of a rock star, is a symbol of 21st-century Ireland--unquaint and anonymous, its chilly white surfaces are indistinguishable from those of a Hilton or a Marriott, despite the "Irish Bar" tucked into one corner of the lobby as a sop to tourists. Bolger is the only man among the writers included, and it is to his credit (or a handsome rebuttal to the old argument about "men's" and "women's" voices in fiction) that we can't tell his contribution from the others. None of the chapters lists its author--a brilliant if unsettling device--so that readers are left wondering whether the bestselling Maeve Binchy, for example, can be distinguished from Anne Haverty and Éilis Ní Dhuibhne, both of whom write poetry as well as prose. Other contributors are Kate O'Riordan, Deirdre Purcell, and Dublin natives Clare Boylan and Emma Donoghue.
Most of the female protagonists are returning to the Dublin of their youth after finding success elsewhere: a former maid comes back to meet the son she gave up for adoption; a faded movie starlet's luck takes a strangely positive turn; a nun looks for a man to sleep with. In "Da Da Da--Daa," an up-and-coming designer tries to corner the Dublin market for her soft, Celtic-inspired fashion line, and instead must endure a long encounter with her mentally ill father. Looking anxiously around the lobby as her room is being readied, Poppy realizes the risks she is taking just by showing up again in the city of her troubled childhood. And if she cannot make her mark as a designer in Dublin, what will success anywhere else mean? But at least for a moment, her assistant takes her mind off her own problems:
He returned her smile confidently, but he was mincing like a camp poodle, so she knew he was nervous. First time to Ireland for this second-generation Bronxer. Secretly, he'd expected to be lynched. So he swaggered, flaunting the homosexuality that had so repelled his Roscommon father. So nervous, he couldn't yet see that the fabled Ireland of his youth, the endless, monotonous, force-fed sentimentality of his parents, had no bearing on this new country. For all the world as though he couldn't see the blatant y.e.s. tattooed on the buttocks of the porter's young assistant.Although the early chapters of Ladies' Night read more like short stories than the opening of a conventional novel, Bolger teases the reader with recurrent scenes and characters, so that the final stories bring satisfying conclusions to several mysteries--and not a few surprises. --Regina Marler
Anthologies Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Anthologies Books
Nebula Awards Showcase 2001: The Year's Best SF and Fantasy Chosen by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaMariner Books; Published: 2001-04-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.88
Price in other shops:
Nebula Awards 30:: SFWA's Choices For The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The YearHoughton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 1996-04-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.65
Price in other shops:
Vinyl Cafe Unpluggedby Stuart McLean
Penguin Books Canada, Limited; Published: 2006; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Ask the Bones: Scary Stories from Around the WorldPuffin; Published: 2002-08-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.70
Price in other shops:
Up the Down Escalator / Living on Thin Airby Charles Leadbeater
E-Penguin; Published: 2002-10-04; Hardcover; Book
Kiss Me, Judasby Will Christopher Baer
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2000-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Home From the Vinyl Cafeby Stuart McLean
Penguin; Published: 1999; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.97
The Portable Saul Bellowby Saul Bellow
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1977-07-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $38.12
Murder At the Vicarageby Agatha Christie
New American Library; Published: 2000; Paperback; Book
The Great Train Robberyby Michael Crichton
Ballantine Books; Published: 1994-07-02; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.50
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Finbar's Hotel: A NovelMariner Books; Published: 1999-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.85
Price in other shops:
The Maeve Binchy Writers' Clubby Maeve Binchy
Anchor; Published: 2010-03-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.82
Price in other shops:
Echoesby Maeve Binchy
NAL Trade; Published: 2008-11-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.61
Price in other shops:
Dublin 4by Maeve Binchy
Arrow; Published: 2006-06-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.97
The Return Journeyby Maeve Binchy
Dell; Published: 2007-05-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.50
Price in other shops:
Irish Girls About Town: An Anthology of Short Storiesby Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly
Pocket Books; Published: 2004-02-24; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.54
Price in other shops:
Minding Frankieby Maeve Binchy
Knopf; Published: 2011-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.79
Price in other shops:
Victoria Line, Central Lineby Maeve Binchy
Arrow; Published: 2006-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.05
Irish Girls About Town: An Anthology of Short Storiesby Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly
Gallery Books; Published: 2003-02-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.91
Price in other shops:
The Builders (Open Door)by Maeve Binchy
GemmaMedia; Published: 2009-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.89
Price in other shops: