Bøger af Brendan O'Brien

"Nobody who sits in traffic on Sedona, Arizona's main stretch or stands shoulder-to-shoulder in its many souvenir shops would call it a ghost town. Neither would anyone renting a room for $2,000 a month or buying a house for a half-million dollars. And yet the people who built this small town and made it a community are being pushed further and further out. Their home is being sold out from under their feet. In studying the impact of short-term rentals, Brendan O'Brien saw something similar happening in places ranging from Bend, Oregon, to Bar Harbor, Maine. But it isn't just short-term rentals, and it's not just tourism towns. Neighborhoods in Austin and Atlanta have become rows of investment properties. Longtime residents in Spokane and Boston have been replaced by new, high-salaried remote workers. Across the country, a level of unaffordable housing that once seemed unique to global cities like New York and San Francisco has become the norm, with nearly a third of all US households considered housing cost burdened. This situation has been abetted by the direct actions of developers, politicians, and existing homeowners who have sought to drive up the cost of housing. But it's mostly happened due to a society-wide refusal to see housing as anything more than real estate, another product available to the highest bidder. This trend of putting local housing on a global market has worsened in recent years but is nothing new. Housing in the United States has always been marred by racial and income inequality that mocks the country's highest ideals."--Publisher marketing.

In 1804 an Ojibwa named Ogetonicut was facing trial in Upper Canada for the murder of a white settler. The prisoner was being transported from Toronto to Newcastle, the site of the trial, aboard the Speedy. Also on board to participate in the trial were some of the most important figures in the justice system of Upper Canada. The trial never took place: the Speedy vanished in a storm on Lake Ontario, taking with her the accused, his jailer, the judge, the lawyers, and all other passengers. Brendan O'Brien recreates the wreck of the Speedy in this exciting account. In the process he examines several related issues, including the administration of justice for native people in Upper Canada, the reasons for the disappearance of the vessel, and the role of the governor in the tragedy.

The Long War is a timely book, given the ongoing events taking place in Northern Ireland. It chronicles the very active history of the relationship among the IRA, Sinn Fein, and the British government from the early 1980s to today. The author has spoken with many of the participants on all sides and has included material that updates the book right up to the latest peace talks.

The book examines Republican policies and activities, and provides a fascinating account of the long, arduous road from arms to politics. It outlines the role of all major players--Adams, McGuinness, Ó Brádaigh, Thatcher, Major, Kennedy, Hume, Haughey, Blair, Clinton. It also includes interviews with a wide range of Republican man and women in their strongholds.

A spectacular tour of Ireland's history for younger readers, from the ice age to the present day. Beautifully illustrated and a great read, this award-winning book is essential for every classroom and library: as well as being the perfect gift! Available both as large format and pocket sized hardback.

Updated for 2018, this is an accessible, clearly-written account of the IRA from its beginnings to today. It covers the origins and history of the organisation, its aims, the political and military thinking which has driven its activities.

Brief Livesis an eccentric collection of biographical anecdotes and fictional vignettes in which famous figures such as Goethe, Petrarch and Antonin Artaud rub shoulders with impecunious aristocrats, actors and art historians as well as a range of fictional characters caught amid the daily chaos of their lives. Here a dead man recounts his experiences as a Jesus impersonator. A wife reflects on the unhappiness of holidays. A doctor conducts altitude experiments on prisoners. Lott loses his mother's ashes in Amsterdam, and Nietzsche dances naked round a stove in Turin. These small, curious pieces deliver the reader on an A-Z journey towards the brilliant long essay 'Variable Stars', which takes in the French poets Mallarme and Villiers, as well as Jonathan Franzen, Janet Frame and Nigel Cox. A meditation on mortality and the tasks of recording, collection and recollection we undertake to stave it off,Brief Livesis a genre-crossing work that makes a plea for what historian Simon Schama has called 'the eloquence of peculiarity'.