The Book of Evidence, by John Banville

April 8, 2010

What is it with this book, really? Of course, it is well-written. It is a John Banville, for crying out loud! And John Banville is a stylist, a wordsmith, a man who sells hand-crafted sentences – in a sense tailor-made sentences. And that’s something, but not in itself enough, for language is but a vehicle [...]

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Birchwood – Prosaic Black Comedy by John Banville

April 5, 2010

Sometimes it feels as if John Banville doesn’t write, but rather works as a craftsman, setting and modifying the words, one by one, tweaking and altering ,word by word, until the sentence perfect. And then, sentence by sentence, tweaking and altering until the paragraph is in place, reading just right. And in the process, always [...]

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Interviews with John Banville

March 16, 2010

The Beatrice – 1997 Wired for Books – (audio – MP3) – 2005 Bibliofemme – 2005 Three Monkeys Online – 2005 The Elegant Variation (long, in three parts)- 2005 Guardian – 2005 Village Voice – 2008 The Irish Times – 2009 The Literateur – 2009 The Millions – 2010 Harvard Crimson – 15 questions – [...]

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Bibliography, John Banville

March 11, 2010

Long Lankin (1970; revised ed.1984 – short stories) Nightspawn (1971) Birchwood (1973) Doctor Copernicus: A Novel (1976) Kepler, a Novel (1981) The Newton Letter: An Interlude (1982) Mefisto (1986) The Book of Evidence (1989) Ghosts (1993) Athena: A Novel (1995) The Ark (1996)(only 260 copies published) The Untouchable (1997) Eclipse (2000) Shroud (2002) Prague Pictures: [...]

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John Banville interviewed on The Book Show about Benjamin Black – video

March 11, 2010

John Banville interviewed on The Book Show on Sky Arts about Benjamin Black and his crime fiction books. Good interview.

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John Banville about Benjamin Black – video, YouTube

March 11, 2010

Booker Prize-winning author John Banville takes us through Dublin and explains that while he isn’t that concerned with plot or story, his pseudonym Benjamin Black is. Here he talks about Quirke, the mildly alcoholic pathologist at the center of Christine Falls and The Silver Swan.

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Biography, John Banville

March 11, 2010

John Banville was born in Wexford in Ireland in 1945. He was educated at a Christian Brothers’ school and St Peter’s College in Wexford. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings. His older brother Vincent [...]

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Books published by John Banville writing as Benjamin Black

March 10, 2010

According to martinedwardsbooks.com: The late Georges Simenon was mainly responsible for the coming to life of Benjamin Black. Banville began to read Simenon a few years ago: ‘Not so much the Maigret novels, more the non-series books like Dirty Snow. I found them just extraordinary – I was astonished by how good they were. He [...]

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