My Life in Books: I bring a book everywhere, in case there is a minute or two of downtime
RP O'Donnell: 'I have one bookshelf that has all of my favourite books — the ones I imagine passing down to my kids.' Picture: Christopher Luke
The writer RP O’Donnell was born in Boston and is now based in West Cork. He won the JG Farrell Award at the West Cork Literary Festival in 2020.
by Louise O’Neill, by Ian Leslie, and by Arnold Lobel.
It depends what type of comfort I need. If I need a quick fix on a bad day, it’s the Jeeves and Wooster stories by PG Wodehouse. If it’s long-term and I need a reminder that love and kindness exist, anything by Maeve Binchy.
by James Joyce. To be fair, I never started it.
Maybe not the one that made me want to be a writer, as I didn’t know I wanted to be one for a long time. But one showed me what writing could do.
The day I graduated from university, me and my mom did a road trip to my grandma’s house and my mom put on an audiobook by Sophie Kinsella.
I rolled my eyes but by the time we got to my grandma’s, we were both so entranced that we parked in the driveway for 30 minutes, waiting for it to finish.
People (men) tend to write Kinsella off, but they are idiots. Kinsella brought together two people, who were both in such a profound and different transitional moment, and gave us community in a car.
That’s true art. I love everything she ever did.
Two books that left me floating on air — by Caroline O’Donoghue and by Laura Kay.
I made the mistake of reading the last part of by Roddy Doyle in the office canteen. I imagine there are still people who tell the story about the man at work who burst into tears while eating hummus.
by Taro Gomi.
by Jackie Collins. It taught me that Jackie Collins is incredible.
‘Where We Went’ by the colonists of Roanoke. ‘Where We Went’ by the nephews of Richard III. ‘Where We Are Going’ by the current United States of America.
by Marian Keyes, by Stephen King, and by Douglas Adams.
— one of my all time favourite books, but my goodness, John Steinbeck was going through a bad divorce when he wrote it.
The movie cuts out the entire first half and makes its own distinct but incredibly faithful story.
Kerr’s in Clonakilty. And every time I’m in the city, my kids drag me into Waterstones and force me to wander aimlessly for hours.
I have one bookshelf that has all of my favourite books — the ones I imagine passing down to my kids. That’s roughly sorted by size, and then by colour. All the other books are best described as ‘flung with abandon’.
All of it. I read compulsively — I used to read cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, that sort of thing. I bring a book everywhere, in case there is a minute or two of downtime.
The bank robber in by Fredrik Backman. Life would be so much easier if everybody approached the world, and other people, with curiosity first.
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