Want to know what books Gavin Duffy recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Gavin Duffy's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
When Brian Keenan went to Beirut in 1980 for a change from his native Belfast, he became front-page news when he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Shi'ite militiamen and held in the suburb of Beirut for the next four and a half years. For much of that time he was shut off from all news and contact with anyone other than his jailers and, later, his fellow hostages, among them British journalist John McCarthy. Cited by The London Times as "a masterful chronicle of courage and resourcefulness," An Evil Cradling eloquently tells us how, in the most inhumane of circumstances, men grow and deepen in... more When Brian Keenan went to Beirut in 1980 for a change from his native Belfast, he became front-page news when he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Shi'ite militiamen and held in the suburb of Beirut for the next four and a half years. For much of that time he was shut off from all news and contact with anyone other than his jailers and, later, his fellow hostages, among them British journalist John McCarthy. Cited by The London Times as "a masterful chronicle of courage and resourcefulness," An Evil Cradling eloquently tells us how, in the most inhumane of circumstances, men grow and deepen in humanity. Keenan, subjected to brutal and dehumanizing treatment, survives through sheer force of will, stubbornness, and occasionally, humor. He emerged from this compression chamber of isolation with a rare gift intact. In this book, he uses that gift to explore the "evil cradling" of secret captivity with ruthless insight, honesty, and poetry. The claustrophobia of the hostage, the frustration and helplessness of undergoing a sentence without term or reason, is described here in ways the reader is unlikely to forget. Brian Keenan's openness and integrity captured the hearts of millions of people after his release, but it is the mark of his unique talent as a writer that he is unwilling merely to be the ex-hostage, the man who has suffered on our behalf. He has succeeded in making the emptiness of imprisonment speak with compassion and dignity. less 
Gavin Duffy#OnThisDay 1986 #Belfast man Brian Keenan was taken hostage in #Beirut. He was held captive for four and a half years. His book about his kidnapping “An Evil Cradling” is a great read. https://t.co/nDoj4G2AnQ (Source)
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2
England's favourite poem, Rudyard Kipling’s If , says that triumph and disaster are the same thing. It also enjoins the English to “lose, and start again at your beginnings/ And never breathe a word about your loss.” Most modern English heroics are screw-ups, retreats or disasters: the charge of the Light Brigade, the doomed Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage, “Scott of the Antarctic”, the “last stand” against the Zulus at Isandlwana, Gordon of Khartoum, the Somme, the flight from Dunkirk. The parallels with Brexit are obvious, but the problem is that the cult of heroic failure... more England's favourite poem, Rudyard Kipling’s If , says that triumph and disaster are the same thing. It also enjoins the English to “lose, and start again at your beginnings/ And never breathe a word about your loss.” Most modern English heroics are screw-ups, retreats or disasters: the charge of the Light Brigade, the doomed Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage, “Scott of the Antarctic”, the “last stand” against the Zulus at Isandlwana, Gordon of Khartoum, the Somme, the flight from Dunkirk. The parallels with Brexit are obvious, but the problem is that the cult of heroic failure was developed precisely in an empire that could afford to play up its failures because it was so successful. Its pathos becomes bathos in a post-imperial world. Failure is no longer heroic -- it is just failure. less Gavin DuffyThis is a fantastic talk by Fintan O’Toole @fotoole about his new book the #HeroicFailure of #Brexit delivered in the famous Politics and Prose in Washington DC. Well worth giving it the time to watch. https://t.co/A5rSkVbvo1 https://t.co/qjdBAVW6ur (Source)
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