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I Could Read the Sky
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I Could Read the Sky Paperback -

by Timothy O'Grady; Steve Pyke (Photographer); Preface by John Berger

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Reader reviews for I Could Read the Sky

From the publisher

With a foreword by John Berger

I Could Read the Sky is a collaboration, in the shape of a lyrical novel, between writer Timothy O'Grady and photographer Steve Pyke.

It tells the story of a man coming of age in the middle of this century. Now at its end, he finds himself alone, struggling to make sense of a life of dislocation and loss. He remembers his childhood in the west of Ireland and his decades of bewildered exile in the factories, potato fields and on the building sites of England. He is haunted by the faces of the family he left behind and by the land that is still within him. He remembers the country and the seascapes, the bars and the boxing booths, the music he played, and the woman he loved.
This elegiac narrative is accompanied by a succession of photographs taken by Pyke during his travels in Ireland - from starkly beautiful landscapes to unforgettable portraits and scenes from everyday life - which in their counterpoint with the text produce a powerful evocation of the Irish emigrant experience.

Details

  • Title I Could Read the Sky
  • Author Timothy O'Grady; Steve Pyke (Photographer); Preface by John Berger
  • Binding Paperback
  • Pages 288
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Unbound
  • ISBN 9781800182714 / 1800182716
  • Category Fiction - General
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

About the author

Timothy O'Grady was born in Chicago and has lived in Ireland, London, Spain and Poland. He is the author of four works of non-fiction and three novels. His novel Motherland won the David Higham award for the best first novel in 1989. His novel I Could Read the Sky, a collaboration with photographer Steve Pyke, won the Encore Award for best second novel of 1997. I Could Read the Sky was filmed and also travelled as a stage show. His most recent novel is Light, published in 2004.

In the 1970s, Steve Pyke was a punk rocker with an itch to do something more singular. He borrowed a friend's camera and since that time has photographed for every major magazine. His work has been exhibited worldwide and is held in many international permanent collections.

Storyteller, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, dramatist and critic, John Berger (1926-2017) was one of the most internationally influential writers of the last fifty years. His many books include Ways of Seeing; the fiction trilogy Into Their Labours; Here Is Where We Meet; the Booker Prize-winning novel G; Hold Everything Dear; the Man Booker-longlisted From A to X; and A Seventh Man.

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I Could Read the Sky
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I Could Read the Sky

by O'Grady, Timothy

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9781800182714 / 1800182716
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I Could Read the Sky
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I Could Read the Sky

by O'Grady, Timothy

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Unbound, 2023. Paperback. Like New. Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
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I Could Read the Sky

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I Could Read the Sky

I Could Read the Sky

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I Could Read the Sky
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I Could Read the Sky

by Timothy O'Grady

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Paperback / softback. New. ‘Think about a tune … the unsayable, the invisible, the longing in music. Here is a book of tunes without musical notes … It wrings the heart’ John Berger‘A masterpiece’ Robert Macfarlane‘O’Grady does not just respond to Pyke’s stark, beautiful photographs: he gives voice to thousands’ Louise Kennedy‘The experience of Irish emigration uniquely and powerfully illuminated’ Mark Knopfler‘If the words tell the story of the voiceless, the bleak lovely photographs show their faces. Fiction rarely gets as close to the messy, glorious truth as do memories and photographs. This rare novel dares to use both’ Charlotte Mendelson, TLSAn old man lies alone and sleepless in London. Before dawn he is taken by an image from his childhood in the West of Ireland, and begins to remember a migrant’s life. Haunted by the faces and the land he left behind, he calls forth the bars and boxing booths of England, the potato fields and building sites, the music he played… Read more
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