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  • Jude: Level 1
    Jude: Level 1
    by Julian Gough

    Shortlisted for the 2008 Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction.

    The novel's prologue won the biggest prize in the world for a single short story - the BBC National Short Story Prize.

    "Sheer comic brilliance" - The Times

    "The best comic novel I've ever read" - Tommy Tiernan

    "Could be the finest comic novel since Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman" - The Sunday Tribune

  • Juno and Juliet
    Juno and Juliet
    by Julian Gough

    My first novel, of which I am very fond. The adventures of teenage twin sisters Juno & Juliet, in their first year away from home. Life, love and literature, in Galway and Tipperary.

     

    "Like Roddy Doyle in an extremely good mood" - The Washington Post

    "A modern, at times brilliantly ironic reworking of the classical fairytale, with nods to Shakespeare, Austen and Beckett." - Literary Review

    "Hugely entertaining" - Vogue

« Pigs and Poems | Main | Finance Ministers' Top 20 »
Friday
21Nov2008

Happy People

DateFriday, November 21, 2008 at 12:26AM

The New York Times ran a piece on Thursday (by Roni Caryn Rabin), with an opening that spoke to my soul. Not the content - though I like the content - the way it was expressed. (Maybe it's because I'm going slowly nuts thumping my own book of poems into shape, but I'm seeing gorgeous, startling poetry everywhere lately.) Anyway, this contains what must be one of the shortest (and bluntest) second pararaphs in NYT history. Maybe it needs to be seen in the context of the whole article... maybe to fully appreciate this you need to have read a truly horrible amount of long, windy NYT prose... Now I've built it up way too much, and you'll just scratch your head and think what the heck was he talking about. Ah, I'm just going to quote it and shut up.

 

 

"Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers — but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.

That’s what unhappy people do."

AuthorJulian Gough | Comment2 Comments | Reference2 References |
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References (2)

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    Response: erdeldr
    at sitelto on May 20, 2009
    bocall
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    Response: smart dog videos
    at smart dog videos on September 12, 2009
    smart dog videos smart dog videos smart dog videos

Reader Comments (2)

Depends on what they mean by a lot of time?
November 23, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterKevin Holmes
That is a great paragraph, and it's true
November 29, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterPeter Chrisp

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