Books by Roddy Doyle

The bestselling author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha presents a one-volume edition of his celebrated trio of novels. Doyle's comic novels, The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van, depict the daily life and times of the Rabbitte family in working-class Dublin.

An adventurous mystery features a cast of odd characters, messages from the dead, and a dangerous secret that needs to be solved, written in collaboration by a diverse cast of celebrated authors, including Gregory Maguire and Nick Hornby.

This funky, rude, unpretentious first novel traces the short, funny, and furious career of a group of working-class Irish kids who form a band, The Commitments. Their mission: to bring soul to Dublin!

A first collection of short works by the author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha depicts the immigrant experience in contemporary Ireland as reflected in the stories of a father who confronts his prejudices when his daughter brings home a black man, a nine-year-old African boy's first day in a new school, and a nanny who plots against her charge's older sisters. Reprint.

A talking dog, the Mack children and the small elf-like Gigglers themselves must try to stop the prank that the Gigglers have mistakenly set in motion to punish Mr. Mack for being mean to his children.

Unable to remember her mother's face because she died when Siobhan was very young, the little girl is given encouraging words by a kind lady in the park who tells her to look in the mirror to see the face of the mother she loved through her own beautiful reflection.

When Mister Mack gets arrested for supposedly robbing the bank, it is up to Rover the dog and the Mack children to rescue him and find their Guinness-record-breaking mother who is running around the world.

In Roddy Doyle's novel witty and poignant novel of working-class life in Dublin, 10-year-old Paddy copes with his parents' fights, his earthy neighborhood, and the trials of his little brother Sinbad. PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA was the winner of the Booker Prize in 1993.

A literary sequel to Roddy Doyle's THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO DOORS, this novel picks up the story of Paula Spencer after she has rid herself of her abusive criminal husband and the blight of alcoholism. Paula is 48, and for the first time has a chance to interact with the world in a meaningful way--but after so much hardship and damage, is it too late for her? Roddy Doyle uses a highly tuned attentiveness to dialogue and detail to create a vivid portrait of a woman's attempts to learn afresh how to live.

From the internationally acclaimed, bestselling novelist -- his first ever non-fiction book: a poignant, illuminating journey through a century of modern Ireland as told through the eyes of his parents.

Ita Doyle: “In all my life I have lived in two houses, had two jobs, and one husband. I’m a very interesting person.”

Rory and Ita tells -- largely in their own words -- the story of Roddy Doyle’s parents’ lives from their first memories to the present. Born in 1923 and 1925 respectively, they met at a New Year’s Eve dance in 1947 and married in 1951. Marvellous talkers, with excellent memories, they draw upon their own family experiences (Ita’s mother died when she was three -- “the only memory I have is of her hands, doing things”; Rory was the oldest of nine children, five of them girls); and recall every detail of their Dublin childhoods -- the people (aunts, cousins, shopkeepers, friends, teachers), the politics (both came from Republican families), Ita’s idyllic times in the Wexford countryside, and Rory’s apprenticeship as a printer.

When Roddy’s parents put down a deposit of two hundred pounds for a house in rural Kilbarrack, on the edge of Dublin, Rory was working as a compositor at the Irish Independent. By the time the first of their four children was born, he had become a teacher at the School of Printing in Dublin. Then, their home began to change (“Kilbarrack wasn’t a rural place any more”) along with the rest of the country, as the intensely Catholic society of their youth was transformed into the vibrant, complex Ireland of today.

Rory and Ita’s captivating accounts of the last century, combined with Roddy Doyle’s legendary skill in illuminating ordinary experience, make a story of tremendous warmth and humanity.

This magnificent book is not only a biography of, but also a love letter to Roddy’s parents, Rory and Ita.

Ita Doyle: "In all my life I have lived in two houses, had two jobs, and one husband. I'm a very interesting person." Rory and Ita, Roddy Doyle's first nonfiction book, tells, largely in their own words, the story of his parents' lives from their first memories to the present. Born in 1923 and 1925 respectively, they met at a New Year's Eve dance in 1947 and married in 1951. They remember every detail of their Dublin childhoods, the people (aunts, cousins, shopkeepers, friends, teachers), the politics (both came from Republican families), idyllic times in the Wexford countryside for Ita, for Rory, his apprenticeship as a printer. Ita's mother died when she was three ("the only memory I have is of her hands, doing things"); Rory was the oldest of nine children, five of them girls.

By the time they put down a deposit of 200 pounds for a house in Kilbarrack, Rory was working as a compositor at the Irish Independent. By the time the first of their four children was born, he'd become a teacher at the School of Printing in Dublin. Kilbarrack began to change ("it wasn't a rural place any more") and Ireland too.

Through their eyes we see the intensely Catholic society of their youth being transformed into the vibrant, modern Ireland of today. Both Rory and Ita Doyle are marvellous talkers, with excellent memories, so combined with Roddy Doyle's legendary skill in illuminating ordinary experience, it makes for a book of tremendous warmth and humanity.

The Commitments was praised as one of the freshest and funniest first novels in years. In The Snapper, Doyle has produced another brilliant comedy of everyday life in Dublin. A young single girl who shares a room with her sisters endures pregnancy while her family and the whole town wonder who the father is.

Henry Smart, born into poverty in Ireland, son of a teenage button-maker and a wanted murderer, joins the IRA, and eventually emigrates. Paddy Doyle's historical novel, the first of a projected trilogy about his hero, includes actual people and events.

Dickens's only serious, uncomic novel, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, is set during the French Revolution and tells a story of unselfish devotion. The beautiful Lucy Manette marries Charles Darnay, the descendant of an aristocratic French family denounced by the revolutionaries, among whom are the memorably evil fanatic Mme. Defarge. When Darnay is arrested and condemned to death, his place is taken at the guillotine by Sidney Carton, who loves Lucy himself and is willing to die to secure her happiness (and who happens to resemble Darnay). His last words--"'Tis a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done..."--have become nearly as famous as the novel itself, one of Dickens's most popular works despite its sober subject matter. It is also, with BARNABY RUDGE, one of his only two historical novels.

From the Booker Prize-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha comes a heartrending and beautifully written novel of a woman emerging from an abusive marriage. "A mixture of spirit and grief . . . a painful and beautiful story, a tale where the sadness and despair are redeemed because they are never denied".--San Francisco Chronicle.

A series of bizarre murders, a female mob head, a missing manuscript by James Joyce, an investigating detective named Sergeant Andrew Andrews, and a sheaf of papers bearing a cryptic clue are but a few of the ingredients in an offbeat mystery written by fifteen acclaimed Irish writers--including Roddy Dyle, Frank McCourt, and Gina Moxley.