{"id":23,"date":"2004-04-28T20:59:17","date_gmt":"2004-04-28T20:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/applecrumble.wordpress.com\/2004\/04\/28\/the-barrytown-trilogy\/"},"modified":"2017-09-20T11:35:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T11:35:12","slug":"the-barrytown-trilogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2004\/04\/28\/the-barrytown-trilogy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Barrytown Trilogy"},"content":{"rendered":"
I’ve just finished reading the absolutely fantastic Barrytown Trilogy<\/a> by Roddy Doyle.
\n
\nAt first I thought I’d just read The Commitments before moving onto something else again but after consuming that within two days I couldn’t wait to read more. The Snapper was just as good – a little longer but the characters had much more depth to them and his writing reminded me a little of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors<\/a> which I read some time ago. The Van was the climax of the lot, but I did find it a little hard-going at the end. Not that he’s a difficult writer to read – I think his books flow like no others I’ve read – but as the relationship between Bimbo and Jimmy Sr starts to deteriorate towards the end you can really feel the clouds rolling in just as if you were in the van with them.<\/p>\n

A thoroughly good read. If you like Roddy Doyle, I would recommend also picking up a copy of A Star Called Henry<\/a>, which I think is the best book of his I have read so far.<\/p>\n

Right – onto some non-fiction now with Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men<\/a>, kindly lent to me by San.<\/div>\n

I’ve just finished reading the absolutely fantastic Barrytown Trilogy by Roddy Doyle.<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books","7":"h-entry","9":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7290,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2021\/05\/09\/7290\/","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":0},"title":"\ud83c\udfac Chaos Walking (2021) is\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"9 May 2021","format":"status","excerpt":"\ud83c\udfac Chaos Walking (2021) is a travesty. The trilogy by Patrick Ness is some of the best fiction I have ever read; to say I was disappointed by the film is a massive understatement. The plot barely hangs together without the broader context of the later books. Terrible ending.","rel":"","context":"In "Snippets"","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4068,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2018\/04\/22\/weeknote-14-trough\/","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":1},"title":"Weeknote #14 \u2014 Trough","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"22 April 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"My first meeting on Monday got off to a bad start when people turned up woefully unprepared, and the week got worse from there. A coalescence of issues meant that the all of my time in the past five days has been spent almost entirely focused on the urgent and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/253F6772-D9CF-4CF7-BDC1-005409D51002.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/253F6772-D9CF-4CF7-BDC1-005409D51002.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/253F6772-D9CF-4CF7-BDC1-005409D51002.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/253F6772-D9CF-4CF7-BDC1-005409D51002.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/253F6772-D9CF-4CF7-BDC1-005409D51002.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/253F6772-D9CF-4CF7-BDC1-005409D51002.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":241,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2006\/09\/24\/bookcrossing\/","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":2},"title":"BookCrossing","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"24 September 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Top marks to my wife for letting me know about the brilliant service at BookCrossing.com. The idea behind the site is that you log a book and get a unique identification number for it which you then write onto a label or even just write by hand into the book.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Web"","block_context":{"text":"Web","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/web\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Read and Release at BookCrossing.com...","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bookcrossing.com\/images\/BookCrossingLink1-130x45.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10131,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/05\/24\/book-summaries-with-and-without-ai\/","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":3},"title":"\ud83d\udcda Book summaries \u2014 with and without AI","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"24 May 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"This is an excellent blog post on working with ChatGPT to generate insightful book summaries. It\u2019s long, but it covers a lot of ground in terms of what the technology does well and what it struggles with right now. Jumping to the conclusion, it seems that you get much better\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9142,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2022\/06\/15\/9142\/","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":4},"title":"\ud83d\udcda Lovely surprise to have\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"15 June 2022","format":"status","excerpt":"\ud83d\udcda Lovely surprise to have one of my Bookcrossing books check in with me after 15 years. It\u2019s great to know that it\u2019s still out there, ready to be enjoyed. Bookcrossing is a great concept but I\u2019ve only had a teeny number of updates from the books I\u2019ve released over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Snippets"","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/4DFA2BA1-15B4-4F2C-861E-3375584DA9B2_1_102_o.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/4DFA2BA1-15B4-4F2C-861E-3375584DA9B2_1_102_o.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/4DFA2BA1-15B4-4F2C-861E-3375584DA9B2_1_102_o.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/4DFA2BA1-15B4-4F2C-861E-3375584DA9B2_1_102_o.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/4DFA2BA1-15B4-4F2C-861E-3375584DA9B2_1_102_o.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/4DFA2BA1-15B4-4F2C-861E-3375584DA9B2_1_102_o.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13297,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2026\/02\/01\/indie-microblogging\/","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":5},"title":"\ud83d\udcda Indie Microblogging","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"1 February 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve just finished reading Indie Microblogging by Manton Reece. This book covers a lot of ground, including plenty of detail on the philosophy behind the Micro.blog platform, as well as broader IndieWeb thinking more generally. Reading about these ideas a few years ago, and setting up an account on Micro.blog,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"\u201cIf you stop reading after this page, here's what you need to know: Publish short posts and photos to your own website, at your own personal domain name. Make sure your web site has an RSS or JSON feed, and add it to communities like Micro.blog. If you want to participate in larger social networks, post to your own site first and then copy the post to Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Massive centralized platforms create problems for society. By posting to your own site, you control your content, distributing it more evenly across the web and minimizing the power of big tech companies.\u201d \u2014 Manton Reece, Indie Microblogging","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":661,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}