“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Funky Friday’s Free-For-All: Because Every Cloud Has Its Silver Friday

Pauline McLynn (right) may have given up on crime writing, but we’re not giving up on her, no sirree, so we’ll be tuned to Radio Scotland on Monday when she guest presents the weekly books spot on Radio Café … Staying with guest presenters, Jason Starr dons the blusher and mascara over at The Lipstick Chronicles to wibble on about ‘men writing women’. The reason he was invited, apparently, is because he’s ‘a babe’. Nice one, Jason … Currently serving the ninth year of a life sentence, Razor Smith is described by Penguin as ‘a career armed-robber turned raconteur’. The reason we mention the author of A Few Kind Words And A Loaded Gun is that the Penguin people sent us an ARC of his upcoming Raiders, without us even having to ask. Now that’s the kind of service that doesn’t need a smile. Cheers, folks … Staying with freebie books: David Thompson at Busted Flush Press sent us a little package all the way from Texas, which included Ken Bruen’s A Fifth of Bruen and Vicki Hendricks’ Miami Purity. Consider us simultaneously stoked and humbled, sir … The rumours about Sebastian Faulks writing the new Bond novel have been confirmed, with The Rap Sheet offering a comprehensive range of articles on the subject – most of which seemed to be headlined, ‘The Name’s Faulks, Sebastian Faulks’. We’d have gone with ‘Faulking Brilliant’ ourselves … Nick Stone gets an impressive write-up in the Miami Herald for his upcoming Miami-set King of Swords, in which he blames Charles Dickens for setting him on the road to crime. We blame Enid Blyton, ourselves … Finally, the vid below is of Elmore Leonard receiving the Raymond Chandler award, during which Elmore tries to tell a few stories about Chandler and gets pretty short shrift from the organisers, who literally don’t seem to know what he’s talking about. Bloody peons … Anyhoo, that’s it for another week, folks. Have a very fine weekend y’all, and don’t forget to come back here now, y’hear?

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