- Paperback: 200 pages
- Publisher: Picador; New Ed edition (7 July 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330391119
- ISBN-13: 978-0330391115
- Product Dimensions: 20 x 13.1 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,030,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
A cast of seven Irish women writers have taken over the newly refurbished Finbar’s Hotel for one memorable night . . .
Book Description
'Each story stands alone but also makes up the vivid picture of life in Dublin's newly refurbished Finbar's Hotel . . . funny and poignant' Sunday Mirror 'Finbar's Hotel is back, this time with a stellar cast of women writers and a lick of paint . . . But what's it all about? Well, it would be all too easy to give the game away, so let's just say that there's a hilarious reworking of the old immaculate conception theme, a bittersweet confrontation between a daughter and her loopy father, a poignant encounter involving a long-married couple, and a cracking finish . . . it doesn't matter who wrote what: together they've produced a playful, light, highly entertaining book' Irish Times 'Beneath the humour, whimsy and outright craziness, Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel hits at the shallowness of current social pretensions and offers a cautious optimism about women's lives today' Times Literary Supplement
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First Sentence
Sarah's eyes were as dry as paper. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Sarah's eyes were as dry as paper. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book gives the opportunity to enjoy the work of seven different writers all of whom have a different style. Cleverly pulled together, each story tells the tale of different people staying at Finbars Hotel, giving an almost voyeuristic feel to the whole book. Each room in the hotel houses a guest or guests with their own web of intrigue, sadness, mystery and often comedy being weaved. The book has a fast but enjoyable pace, and having the benefit of many accomplished writers it means you never get bored.Having initially read the first collection of short stories about Finbars Hotel, penned by male writers I was interested to see if an all female authorship would change the feel of this next book. I was pleased to see that it hadn't. You are cleverly led from one story to another just as your eyes would wander from one person to another if you were people watching in the recetion of the hotel yourself. As a person who likes to people watch I liked both of these books because it meant you got to find out what a persons story was, something you are usually only left wondering about. I couldn't put this book down as I was too interested in what was going to happen in the next hotel room !!
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The concept of the idea of having various writers contribute to one overall theme is interesting.
The book tells the story of guests staying at the hotel, some are interesting but others are disapointing.
I much preferred the first Finbars Hotel book as the individual authors carried the charecters (especially the staff) across the chapters considerably better that this book.
OK for an airport read!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
18 reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Spend One Busy Night In a Dublin Hotel
4 April 2000
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a sometimes touching, sometimes funny story of one night in the nouveau chic Finbar's Hotel of Dublin. You will meet a woman getting impregnated by her best friend's husband, a career woman and her crazy father, a bride-to-be who gets the ultimate revenge on an old boyfriend who did her wrong, a nun looking for love in a most unorthodox manner, a mother reunited with the son she gave up for adoption, a woman who follows her husband to find out if he's cheating on her, and an aging actress who wants to recapture the past. Their paths all cross on one night at this hotel.
I chose the book because I am a big fan of Maeve Binchy and she wrote one of the chapters. Guessing which author wrote which chapter becomes a guessing game for the reader familiar with these authors.
This is not as good as Binchy's own novels, but definitely enjoyable and worth your time.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Not As Good As the Original
4 Dec 2001
Format:Paperback
This is the second "Finbar's Hotel," collection edited by Bolger, and this one is given over to seven Irish women writers: Maeve Binchy, Clare Boylan, Emma Donoghue, Anne Haverty, Eilis Ni Dhibhne, Kate O'Riordan and Deirdre Purcell. As in the first one (which had only two women, Anne Enright and Jennifer Johnston), each writer is given a "room" of the hotel, and creates a guest and a story to explain their presence at the hotel. And as in the first one, the writer of each story is not identified. One has to wonder at the point of such cleverness, as it is a directly impedes any attempt on the reader's part to discover a new writer to seek out in the future. For example, say I find two of the seven stories to be amazing, what am I to do? Buy one book by each of the seven writers and read all seven to figure out whose writing it was that I liked? Since there's no real purpose to keeping the authors secret (other than editorial conceit), why do it?
The strongest stories reside in rooms 101 and 106, which contain stories that revolve around marital infidelity, but have gentle reversals. Room 104 also concerns infidelity, but in this case, to God-and is much less interesting. Rooms 102, 103, 105 and the penthouse all contain guests coming from abroad and their stories all revolve around encounters with their past. Room 105, which concerns a mother meeting her son for the first time is perhaps the best of them, although the penthouse story is worth reading for the ending if nothing else. One sort of odd running thread is the clumsy mocking of Americans that appears in each story, which is in contrast the generally gentle tone of the collection. All in the all, the collection is inoffensive, but not quite as strong as the original Finbar's Hotel.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Wonderful Secrets
27 Mar 2000
Format:Paperback
"Ladies Night at Finbars Hotel" is a great book. I am a big fan of Maeve Binchy's writing, and am waiting for her next book to come out. Meanwhile I saw she had contributed to this book, so I picked it up.
For those of you familiar with Binchy's writing, you'll notice how every chapter leads into the next, and the characters lives intertwine. The same happens in this book.
Each chapter revolves around a guest in a particular room. One truly becomes engrossed in their lives.
The writers all write along the same vein, so it is actually difficult to tell which author wrote which chapter. But that does not matter, all that matters is it is a good book which you will not want to put down. Order it today!
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