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Roddy Doyle

Ireland (b.1958)

Roddy Doyle is the author of five novels, including Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, for which he won the 1993 Booker Prize, and The Woman Who Walked into Doors. He lives in Dublin.

Genres: Literary Fiction, Children's Fiction, General Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Mystery

Series

Barrytown
   1. The Commitments (1988)
   2. The Snapper (1990)
   3. The Van (1992)
   The Barrytown Trilogy (1992)

Paula Spencer
   1. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (1996)
   2. Paula Spencer (2006)
   3. The Women Behind the Door (2024)

Roddy Doyle's Childrens books
   Not Just for Christmas (1999)
   Wilderness (2007)
   Her Mother's Face (2008)

Last Roundup
   1. A Star Called Henry (1999)
   2. Oh, Play That Thing (2004)
   3. The Dead Republic (2010)

Rover Adventures
   The Giggler Treatment (2000)
   Rover Saves Christmas (2001)
   The Meanwhile Adventures (2004)
   Rover and the Big Fat Baby (2016)

Novels

   Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha (1993)
   Yeats is Dead! (2001) (with others)
   Click (2007) (with others)
   A Greyhound of a Girl (2011)
   The Guts (2013)
   Brilliant (2014)
   Smile (2017)
   Love (2020)

Collections

   Brownbread and War: Two Plays (1994)
   The Deportees (2007)
   Free? (2009) (with others)
   From the Republic of Conscience (2009) (with others)
   Bullfighting (2011)
   Two Pints (2012)
   Two More Pints (2014)
   Two for the Road (2019)
   The Complete Two Pints (2021)
   Life Without Children (2021)

Novellas and Short Stories

Jimmy Jazz (2013)
Charlie Savage (2019)

Non fiction

   Rory and Ita (2002)
   The Second Half (2014) (with Roy Keane)
   The Gifts of Reading (2020) (with William Boyd, Candice Carty-Williams, Imtiaz Dharker, Pico Iyer, Robert Macfarlane, Andy Miller, Jackie Morris, Chigozie Obioma and Philip Pullman)
   Kellie (2022) (with Kellie Harrington)

Series contributed to

Finbar's Hotel
Finbar's Hotel (1997) (with others)

Open Door Series 1
Not Just for Christmas (1999)

Open Door Series 5
Mad Weekend (2006)

Elsewhere
3. Somewhere (2012) (with Michel Faber and Jackie Kay)

Beyond the Stars
The Star Dogs (2014)

Quick Reads 2015
Dead Man Talking (2015)

Awards

	Booker Prize Best Novel nominee (1991) : The Van
	Booker Prize Best Novel winner (1993) : Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha
	Carnegie Medal Best Book nominee (2013) : A Greyhound of a Girl
	Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing Best Book nominee (2019) : Charlie Savage

Roddy Doyle recommends

Glorious Exploits (2024)
Ferdia Lennon
"In At Swims-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien gave us cowboys riding through Dublin. Now, Ferdia Lennon gives us modern-day Dubliners living among the ancient Greeks. This is a very special, very clever, very entertaining novel."

Lost on Me (2023)
Veronica Raimo
"When the book you start reading is immediately hilarious and deeply disturbing, you know you're onto something special. Lost on Me is that book."

Kala (2023)
Colin Walsh
"Kala is a thriller - and a lot more. It is exciting and cleverly structured, but its great strength is the characters: they are terrific."

The Mess We're In (2023)
Annie Macmanus
"I really liked the book. I loved the pace of it, it belts along but never feels rushed. The writing is so vivid - I could almost feel Orla's hangover, and everyone else's too. [Macmanus has] created a great gang of characters, and a great variety too, all of them very human . . . All the music in the novel is cleverly and very successfully achieved. And London - what [she's] managed to do with London, and what London means to different generations of Irish people - is terrific, and deeply moving."

Nothing Special (2023)
Nicole Flattery
"Brilliant, full of surprises."

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain (2023)
Victoria MacKenzie
"This is the best first novel I've read in years. It is short, yet so full and so vivid; it is amazing."

The Making of Her (2022)
Bernadette Jiwa
"An absorbing, brilliantly paced book; I didn't want it to end."

Golden Age (2022)
Wang Xiaobo
"Every page is a surprise. The novel is outrageous, startling, and very, very funny."

Factory Girls (2022)
Michelle Gallen
"Full of the stuff that we're starting to expect of Michelle Gallen; wild, hilariously angry characters, and language that is vital, bang-on, and seriously funny."

How to Gut a Fish (2022)
Sheila Armstrong
"The stories in this collection are unsettling, unpredictable, and brilliant."

The Legend of Valentine Sorrow (2021)
Caroline Busher
"Gripping, vivid, and very, very entertaining. I loved it."

The Pages (2021)
Hugo Hamilton
"A terrific, engrossing novel. I love the narrator – such a great character – and the structure is clever and carefully woven, and very satisfying."

The Hummingbird (2021)
Sandro Veronesi
"A spellbinding experience: clever, funny and deeply moving."

Holding Her Breath (2021)
Eimear Ryan
"From the first sentence to the last, this is a great piece of writing - precise, sure, engaging, and a joy to read."

Under the Spell (2021)
Benjamin Hedin
"A novel that is both a terrific page-turner and a very moving depiction of grief; it really did have me under its spell."

Snowflake (2021)
Louise Nealon
"Snowflake is mad and wonderful. I thought I was reading one thing, then discovered—several times—that I was reading a different, even better thing."

The Rules of Revelation (2021)
Lisa McInerney
"The characters, the dialogue, the wit and humanity - everything about this book glows."

In the Event of Contact (2021)
Ethel Rohan
"This is a terrific collection; each story is its own thing, gripping, powerful and very moving."

Zorrie (2021)
Laird Hunt
"Zorrie is a beautiful novel. It is gentle, yet full of surprises, and Zorrie, the protagonist who loves her farm and Elvis, is a wonderful creation."

Before My Actual Heart Breaks (2021)
Tish Delaney
"This is in many ways a familiar story but it is told in such a fresh, entertaining, funny and moving way, it felt like I was reading something brand new."

Cathedral (2021)
Ben Hopkins
"Cathedral is a brilliantly organised mess of great, great characters. It is fascinating, fun, and gripping to the very end."

The Last Interview (2020)
Eshkol Nevo
"Eshkol Nevo writes beautifully, funnily, and wisely about men and women…Friendship, envy, love, misery, endurance—he captures the lot."

The Wild Laughter (2020)
Caoilinn Hughes
"I loved this book. So funny and bleak. I loved the madness, the tone, the ending, the realisation, The Third Policeman charge of the whole thing."

The Fire Starters (2019)
Jan Carson
"Jan Carson seems to have invented a new Belfast in this gripping, surprising, exhilarating novel."

A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself (2019)
William Boyle
"It’s the women who make this novel such a great read. They are glorious and mad, vulnerable, so human, and very, very funny."

Last Stories (2018)
William Trevor
"The man - the work - was brilliant, elegant, surprising, reliable, precise, stark, often sad, sometimes funny, shocking and even frightening."

Travelling in a Strange Land (2018)
David Park
"An extraordinary novel, at once startling and quietly brilliant. David Park is a one of Ireland's great novelists and this is, perhaps, his best."

From a Low and Quiet Sea (2018)
Donal Ryan
"An engrossing, unpredictable, beautifully crafted novel."

Don't Skip Out on Me (2018)
Willy Vlautin
"Magnificent…. Willy Vlautin is now one of America’s great writers."

Peculiar Ground (2017)
Lucy Hughes-Hallett
"So clever and beautifully written, it gripped me from start to end. I abandoned work and family to finish it."

Reservoir 13 (2017)
(Reservoir)
Jon McGregor
"Reservoir 13 is quite extraordinary - the way it's structured, the way it rolls, the skill with which Jon McGregor lets the characters breathe and age. It's like watching more than a decade of living from a slow-moving train."

The Years That Followed (2016)
Catherine Dunne
"Exciting, elegant, urgent, true - her writing is all of these things and more. One of Ireland's best novelists."

Hopscotch (2015)
Hilary Fannin
"Quite brilliant; beautifully, cleverly observed; funny, heart-breaking."

City of Bohane (2011)
Kevin Barry
"Kevin Barry is unique, a one-man school. His work is hilarious and unpredictable - and always brilliant."

John the Revelator (2009)
Peter Murphy
"Everything about John the Revelator excited me - I couldn't wait to turn the page and keep going. It was almost like reading for the first time..."

The Sea and the Silence (2008)
Peter Cunningham
"A terrific novel. Moving and hugely entertaining."

The Third Party (2007)
Glenn Patterson
"An intriguing and highly entertaining novel."

The Midnight Choir (2006)
Gene Kerrigan
"A great writer... relentless and brilliant."

Sons of Destiny (2004)
(Saga of Darren Shan, book 12)
Darren Shan
"I love the way you manage to juggle funny with the unpleasant, the affection with the hurt. It's great story-telling."

Sing! (2001)
Michael Curtin
"One of Ireland's very best writers. His books are marvellous achievements, very funny and very, very human."

Sudden Times (1999)
Dermot Healy
"Disturbing, funny, mad and beautifully human... it's a great novel and Dermot Healy is Ireland's greatest writer."

The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998)
(McNulty Family, book 1)
Sebastian Barry
"This is a powerful, unique book. Sebastian Barry's language is utterly new and quite magnificent; it was like reading English for the first time."

The Salesman (1998)
Joseph O'Connor
"Joseph O'Connor has a great eye for the absurd in common things, a great ear for the comic in ordinary speech. His writing is terrific."

The Crooked Man (1997)
(Harry Fielding, book 1)
Philip Davison
"... memorable and very accomplished book."

Give Us a Kiss (1996)
Daniel Woodrell
"I loved it. Woodrell is a marvellous writer."

Fever Pitch (1992)
Nick Hornby
"Funny, wise and true."

How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974)
Jennifer Johnston
"A short, brilliant masterpiece."

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