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Autobibliography
In my case, reading has always served a dual purpose. In a positive sense, it offers sustenance, enlightenment, the bliss of fascination. In a negative sense, it is a means of withdrawal, of inhabiting a reality quarantined from one that often comes across as painful, alarming or downright distasteful. In the former sense, reading is like food; in the latter, it is like drugs or alcohol.
In Autobibliography, Rob Doyle recounts a year spent rereading fifty-two books – from the Dhammapada and Marcus Aurelius, via The Tibetan Book of the Dead and La Rochefoucauld, to Robert Bolaño and Svetlana Alexievich – as well as the memories they trigger and the reverberations they create. It is a record of a year in reading, and of a lifetime of books.
Provocative, intelligent and funny, it is a brilliant introduction to a personal canon by one of the most original and exciting writers around. It is a book about books, a book about reading, and a book about a writer. It is an autobibliography.
In Autobibliography, Rob Doyle recounts a year spent rereading fifty-two books – from the Dhammapada and Marcus Aurelius, via The Tibetan Book of the Dead and La Rochefoucauld, to Robert Bolaño and Svetlana Alexievich – as well as the memories they trigger and the reverberations they create. It is a record of a year in reading, and of a lifetime of books.
Provocative, intelligent and funny, it is a brilliant introduction to a personal canon by one of the most original and exciting writers around. It is a book about books, a book about reading, and a book about a writer. It is an autobibliography.
256 pages, Paperback
Published November 7, 2024
7 people are currently reading
201 people want to read
About the author
Rob Doyle
26 books147 followersRob Doyle’s first novel, Here Are the Young Men, is published by Bloomsbury, and was chosen as a book of the year by The Irish Times, Sunday Times, Sunday Business Post, and Independent. It was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Newcomer of the Year. His second book, This Is the Ritual, will be published in January 2016 (Bloomsbury / Lilliput). Rob’s fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Sunday Times, Sunday Business Post, Gorse, Dalkey Archive’s Best European Fiction 2016 and elsewhere.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 29, 2021
A book of reference from our old Threshold pushing friend
“What is it we’re reading for?” Rob writes in the opening line of commentary which follows his second review. “I mean, why do we keep reading and rereading a particular novelist?” He continues. “invariably I find my way to the conclusion that what I’m primarily in it for is friendship”.
In his latest and most novel of novels yet, Rob Doyle’s Autobibliography is both a coffee table book of reference, and one I found myself devouring under a reading lamp, propped up with a pillow behind my head.
Adhering to his commitment to remain fresh with each literary product, Autobibliography succeeds in being different, while not breaching the threshold of pretension.
It's a page turner in the strangest way, like a symbol of life and all its many monotonous periods. Not to say the reviews are poor, the writing never is. However, given his 340 word limit for each, I rarely found myself invested. I considered skipping the reviews altogether, jumping from one commentary section to the next, but I knew that to do so would be like fast forwarding to the climax, thus evading all suspense.
Moby dick, Chapter 44, is in my opinion, the tell-all that makes the book worth reading, yet it couldn't stand alone, because it's the tease of it, the unexpected, like an ambiguously wrapped gift, one you hadn't known you'd wanted, that delivers such satisfaction.
This is a book about its author, delivered in a way that’s bright and fresh. He’ll overshare, perhaps even make you cringe, he'll take risks, and he'll tell you something different.
“What is it we’re reading for?” Rob writes in the opening line of commentary which follows his second review. “I mean, why do we keep reading and rereading a particular novelist?” He continues. “invariably I find my way to the conclusion that what I’m primarily in it for is friendship”.
In his latest and most novel of novels yet, Rob Doyle’s Autobibliography is both a coffee table book of reference, and one I found myself devouring under a reading lamp, propped up with a pillow behind my head.
Adhering to his commitment to remain fresh with each literary product, Autobibliography succeeds in being different, while not breaching the threshold of pretension.
It's a page turner in the strangest way, like a symbol of life and all its many monotonous periods. Not to say the reviews are poor, the writing never is. However, given his 340 word limit for each, I rarely found myself invested. I considered skipping the reviews altogether, jumping from one commentary section to the next, but I knew that to do so would be like fast forwarding to the climax, thus evading all suspense.
Moby dick, Chapter 44, is in my opinion, the tell-all that makes the book worth reading, yet it couldn't stand alone, because it's the tease of it, the unexpected, like an ambiguously wrapped gift, one you hadn't known you'd wanted, that delivers such satisfaction.
This is a book about its author, delivered in a way that’s bright and fresh. He’ll overshare, perhaps even make you cringe, he'll take risks, and he'll tell you something different.
November 3, 2021
a series of reviews and reflections which concludes with a desire to join a crew of seals. fun x
March 1, 2024
A very (very) quick read - he’s quite good isn’t he ! A bit pretentious at (all) times.
Reading a book about reading 52 books in a year whilst trying to read 52 books in a year. Meta!
Reading a book about reading 52 books in a year whilst trying to read 52 books in a year. Meta!
February 20, 2025
Awesome
October 14, 2021
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s something so delightful about reading a book about reading books. Books are a very personal pastime, and what books we read can tell a lot about who we are as a person, so in this book, Doyle has effectively bared his soul to us.
Doyle writes so passionately about his choice of books that I can’t help but want to read them all, even ones where the topic wouldn’t normally interest me. Thanks to this book, I have started a t of books mentioned in other books that I hope one day to read.
What is amazing is how each person understands translated and classic books. I’ve read a number of them in my time - not like Doyle in this book - and I think everyone gets a different meaning and feeling from these books, and that’s what makes a book discussion with other bibliophile so fascinating.
Doyle writes so passionately about his choice of books that I can’t help but want to read them all, even ones where the topic wouldn’t normally interest me. Thanks to this book, I have started a t of books mentioned in other books that I hope one day to read.
What is amazing is how each person understands translated and classic books. I’ve read a number of them in my time - not like Doyle in this book - and I think everyone gets a different meaning and feeling from these books, and that’s what makes a book discussion with other bibliophile so fascinating.
October 14, 2025
It’s a fair question to ask whether Rob Doyle’s new book Autobibliography is cheating.
The critic and author of Here Are the Young Men and Threshold, was tasked by the Irish Times in 2019 to provide a series of short (350 word) reflections on fifty-two of his favourite books as part of an ongoing column.
In Autobibliography we get these (far too short) commentaries interspersed with Doyle’s reflections on his life of intellectual curiosity, sketched out as the pandemic unfolds around him.
The rather lazy structure of the book – part repurposed column, part diary entry – certainly doesn’t sound promising, yet Doyle’s undeniable talent as a writer and his excellent literary taste, make for a pleasant and sentimental read.
Autobibliography’s selections and commentaries are archetypal of a Millennial male writer entering the thresholds of mid-life.
Norman Mailer’s The Fight, J.K Huysmans’ À rebours, Michel Houellebecq’s Whatever, JG Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition – Doyle’s selections are certainly a ‘who’s who’ of high-minded dick lit.
But there is something infectious about his love of reading. “I’ve never read a book with so much light in it, wherein dazzle and radiance become theme and narrative” Doyle writes on Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi.
Whilst the canon is blokey in taste, Autobibliography is far from chauvinist in author selection – there is plenty of praise for Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays, Virginie Despentes Baise-Moi along with the appropriate commendations for Woolf and Sontag.
Doyle’s philosophical selections have a nihilistic bent, with commentaries on E.M Cioran, Jean Baudrillard, Georges Bataille, Arthur Schopenhauer and (of course) Friedrich Nietzsche.
There are also some occasional wild cards thrown in, with unexpected reflections on Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (“an ageless road map for those seeking to live a virtuous life”) and The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Reading through Autobibliography, I glanced between chapter titles and my bookshelf, blushing over our shared clichés. There is a well-worn intellectual trajectory for boys who can’t play football and Doyle’s choices will probably come off as incredibly myopic to those who can’t relate.
The book also includes some wry commentaries on the struggles of certain literary palates. When I read “the male isolationist authors I wagered on in my youth have left me painfully ill-equipped for a life in the glare of the feminist, hive-minded 2020s” I chuckled in shared brotherhood.
Doyle’s interludes where he reflects on his early life as a 20-something struggling writer are also uncomfortably familiar. Stories of hungover visits to the second-hand bookstore, pathetic sexual failures and heavy drug use are peppered throughout.
There are also occasional flash forwards to present day, as Doyle grapples with pending Armageddon and lockdown: “watching Pornhub felt like a nightmarish roam through an infinite wet market”. Thankfully though, the book never descends into ‘pandemic novel’ territory.
For older (probably male) readers, Autobibliography provides a pleasant nostalgia trip – reflecting on the key texts which shaped our youth. For younger (probably male) readers Doyle outlines an erudite canon to be explored, some midlife reflections on a life well read.
Literature, it can’t be said enough, shapes lives and I thoroughly enjoyed a gifted writer providing a glimpse at the books that shaped his.
The critic and author of Here Are the Young Men and Threshold, was tasked by the Irish Times in 2019 to provide a series of short (350 word) reflections on fifty-two of his favourite books as part of an ongoing column.
In Autobibliography we get these (far too short) commentaries interspersed with Doyle’s reflections on his life of intellectual curiosity, sketched out as the pandemic unfolds around him.
The rather lazy structure of the book – part repurposed column, part diary entry – certainly doesn’t sound promising, yet Doyle’s undeniable talent as a writer and his excellent literary taste, make for a pleasant and sentimental read.
Autobibliography’s selections and commentaries are archetypal of a Millennial male writer entering the thresholds of mid-life.
Norman Mailer’s The Fight, J.K Huysmans’ À rebours, Michel Houellebecq’s Whatever, JG Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition – Doyle’s selections are certainly a ‘who’s who’ of high-minded dick lit.
But there is something infectious about his love of reading. “I’ve never read a book with so much light in it, wherein dazzle and radiance become theme and narrative” Doyle writes on Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi.
Whilst the canon is blokey in taste, Autobibliography is far from chauvinist in author selection – there is plenty of praise for Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays, Virginie Despentes Baise-Moi along with the appropriate commendations for Woolf and Sontag.
Doyle’s philosophical selections have a nihilistic bent, with commentaries on E.M Cioran, Jean Baudrillard, Georges Bataille, Arthur Schopenhauer and (of course) Friedrich Nietzsche.
There are also some occasional wild cards thrown in, with unexpected reflections on Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (“an ageless road map for those seeking to live a virtuous life”) and The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Reading through Autobibliography, I glanced between chapter titles and my bookshelf, blushing over our shared clichés. There is a well-worn intellectual trajectory for boys who can’t play football and Doyle’s choices will probably come off as incredibly myopic to those who can’t relate.
The book also includes some wry commentaries on the struggles of certain literary palates. When I read “the male isolationist authors I wagered on in my youth have left me painfully ill-equipped for a life in the glare of the feminist, hive-minded 2020s” I chuckled in shared brotherhood.
Doyle’s interludes where he reflects on his early life as a 20-something struggling writer are also uncomfortably familiar. Stories of hungover visits to the second-hand bookstore, pathetic sexual failures and heavy drug use are peppered throughout.
There are also occasional flash forwards to present day, as Doyle grapples with pending Armageddon and lockdown: “watching Pornhub felt like a nightmarish roam through an infinite wet market”. Thankfully though, the book never descends into ‘pandemic novel’ territory.
For older (probably male) readers, Autobibliography provides a pleasant nostalgia trip – reflecting on the key texts which shaped our youth. For younger (probably male) readers Doyle outlines an erudite canon to be explored, some midlife reflections on a life well read.
Literature, it can’t be said enough, shapes lives and I thoroughly enjoyed a gifted writer providing a glimpse at the books that shaped his.
December 8, 2021
I didn’t expect it to be this fast: a published book of Rob Doyle. I preordered ‘Autobibliography’ on April 24th. (Swift Press has interesting taste.) I bought the Tolka Journal No. 1 to get a fix between ‘Threshold’ and this, but when I started the essay in that journal I couldn’t go past two sentences. I was not ready for Robert yet. And with ‘Autobibliography’ I was tentative after fixing upon the thought that, today is when I get to start a new Rob Doyle book. And then I started to read and was calmed. Agitation at, will I be able to focus?, dissipates.
It has an introduction that feels very much like the introduction to ‘But Beautiful,’ but slightly more vague. “What is literature?” As a 20 year old lover of books (with the literature education of a two year long lover of books) vs. a 20 year old person uncaring for jazz I am primed for two different things. This is more vague because 52 books is 52 topics, whereas 7-odd jazz musicians are all jazz baby. Though Rob, please tell me about some of your relationship with literature. (Also recently found a dead person’s haul of Desmond Hogan novels at my second hand book local, so excited to dig in.)
I must say, the first piece has great observations and visceral summations, but it must go on! How many paragraphs are cut for each column in editing? Less is more I suppose. But I can’t well start a conversation on these things when I hit blank page... though I haven’t read 90% of the authors, let alone the books.
I read ‘Antwerp’ and ‘But Beautiful’ in preparation for this. I read ‘A Rebours’ because of the Double Happys. I thought less about the Double Happys during Huysmans, but Bolaño and Dyer are easily connected with Rob Doyle. I’m afraid of how prolific Doyle’s tastes or recommendations are through Instagram n shit. I’m afraid because this mass of literature loved by someone who is my modern literary hero puts the threat of diverging from my own path of reading into that of another person. That way my intellectual world is only sloppy seconds. I would never be taken seriously. I would never finish writing a novel or even truly reading one because I would forever be thinking about Robert Doyle. Luckily I have 150 books lined up all of which have manifested reliant on my human experience, the only crossover is a Camus, or Marilynne Robinson or two. Yet I start to write a bookshopping list as I write.(True crime, eh? Sounds like you have found the more interesting of the lot.)
I think it goes without saying that the books I haven’t read of these 52 I will be convinced I need to look at them. But I was pissed off at ‘Antwerp.’ Perhaps as a sorbet after the main of Bolaño’s published works it’d be a curious bookend. But as an entree it reeks like rotten oysters, I’m almost too sick to allow the next course over. What is the perfect chaser to ‘Antwerp’? Perhaps Rob’s short musings on its dream-like reality. “An exploded fragmentary glimpse” at a condensed part of not-quite Chile. I don’t think this helps the book’s wider existence but it is a thoughtful and rewarding take nonetheless.
Oh shit, Rob observes this friend with an author relationship on the very next page. How meta this all is. Recurring columns collated is likely the second most intimate published thing to read beside a good autobiography. I’m guessing some of this extra material is extracted from that which was cut/less relevant at the time.
Oh man, I already wanted to read ‘Notes from Underground.’ Damn me and Rob have a similar relationship to books. I stopped reading for ‘Call of Duty.’ I stopped playing video games for school, I barely read then, aside from favourites, non-fiction on drama, and the odd captivating beautiful op-shop materialisations—thank you ‘Lanark.’ But then I started playing video games after school... in fact, spent a whole year on nothing but games! My movie watching was surrounded by these depressions and self-loathing that such mindless multiplayer experiences develop. And so I was 19 and I watched a movie “based on a novel” while being between depressive pits of empty battle royale and asymmetrical horror games. And it so happened that ‘The Collector’ by John Fowles sat on a shelf in this building. I read it avidly, critically, ultimately disappointed, but oh? Storytelling with intent and hopefully meaning, that is the stuff of life. Only instant gratification gets in the way when hard work is involved. I was glad to remember then, that I love reading.
6 Goodreads reviews at the time of starting this read. I assumed I’d be the several hundredth by now. As lost in the internet void as is close to private...
I can’t work more than twenty hours a week without perpetuating that depression alike the one I got from more recent ‘Call of Duty’ phases. In fact, I should’ve brought it up as these two fed each other beautifully. Washing dishes until my feet are sore from standing, and washing dishes for four hours longer, sometimes walking home through this city of hills, arriving an hour later, long after my phone died, dregs of energy spent swiping through tinder, wondering how likely or sane it’d be to find someone less than a kilometre away, and keen, and with my back dry with six hours of sweat I would find myself sitting on my bed, on which the controller was ready, instinctively switching it on, spending minutes trying to stand up and have a shower. The day after would be recovery from such an evening, but no less sad, and much emptier.
I think the ‘But Beautiful’ one could use another 50 words more than any so far. Which feels like a warm up to the lovely Geoff-Dyer-as-man piece following it. That’s nice. I do want to counter this idea that Dyer’s book makes you want to listen to music. Aside from the fact that I did listen to it, I was ecstatic with that representation of jazz that I got from this book. And, though good jazz can be enjoyable, and apparently tell a great story too, the silent life of ‘But Beautiful’s words on paper are a wholly different product than the art form it is inspired by.
Fuck me. The ‘Valis’ piece at once moved me (“I myself can no longer read his novels, [touching nostalgia]”) and then made me very anxious around the 300th word.
Spending most of what’s left after working 20 hours buying Norman Mailer’s ‘Advertisements for Myself’ when you’ve never read the man is a waste. But second hand books are urgently waiting for this money.
Bro. I had exactly the same experience when the end of my first screenplay was in sight. (I think Rob has also written about this somewhere else, different context?—‘Here Are the Young Men’?) Fears of terminal illness mainly. Sudden death. An annoying heart like mine coming into play. Now that the script is finished in some degree, it is nearly the same with that film’s production. Because, what if I’m the only one that understands how it might be realised as something worth watching?
Read over an evening, a day, and this morning. First time doing such a thing since at least some lockdown reading. Likely one of the only times I haven’t watched a movie between any of its pages (this could be a lie as I watched 3 movies the same day I started reading it...). Out of lockdown reading must’ve been ‘Normal People’ that I read as devotedly. Thinking about opinions on, savouring a good book. Because, from the outside, it looks like I got ‘Autobibliography’ out of the way, in fact I breathed it, and thought on it, and wrote because of it and about it. Doing that over a week in fits and starts would have been a seperate experience. Sometimes ‘Autobibliography’ didn’t breath back, its lung closing as I too held my breath until the next gasp. It doesn’t recede below my expectations of Doyle. And as a whole product it is rewarding and as lovely. As lovely a human thing and outpouring with love for many things.
I think I count as one of the people flirted with over social media. *blushs*
Read ‘Childish Things’ after, very relatable and human video game history and fascinations ranging from nostalgia to present day revelment.
(Also surprised at this observation of modern literature being very much influenced by social media stuff. The intimate personality narrating various things. Strange. It certainly is a nice kind of interesting rather than a normal fiction narrative!)
It has an introduction that feels very much like the introduction to ‘But Beautiful,’ but slightly more vague. “What is literature?” As a 20 year old lover of books (with the literature education of a two year long lover of books) vs. a 20 year old person uncaring for jazz I am primed for two different things. This is more vague because 52 books is 52 topics, whereas 7-odd jazz musicians are all jazz baby. Though Rob, please tell me about some of your relationship with literature. (Also recently found a dead person’s haul of Desmond Hogan novels at my second hand book local, so excited to dig in.)
I must say, the first piece has great observations and visceral summations, but it must go on! How many paragraphs are cut for each column in editing? Less is more I suppose. But I can’t well start a conversation on these things when I hit blank page... though I haven’t read 90% of the authors, let alone the books.
I read ‘Antwerp’ and ‘But Beautiful’ in preparation for this. I read ‘A Rebours’ because of the Double Happys. I thought less about the Double Happys during Huysmans, but Bolaño and Dyer are easily connected with Rob Doyle. I’m afraid of how prolific Doyle’s tastes or recommendations are through Instagram n shit. I’m afraid because this mass of literature loved by someone who is my modern literary hero puts the threat of diverging from my own path of reading into that of another person. That way my intellectual world is only sloppy seconds. I would never be taken seriously. I would never finish writing a novel or even truly reading one because I would forever be thinking about Robert Doyle. Luckily I have 150 books lined up all of which have manifested reliant on my human experience, the only crossover is a Camus, or Marilynne Robinson or two. Yet I start to write a bookshopping list as I write.(True crime, eh? Sounds like you have found the more interesting of the lot.)
I think it goes without saying that the books I haven’t read of these 52 I will be convinced I need to look at them. But I was pissed off at ‘Antwerp.’ Perhaps as a sorbet after the main of Bolaño’s published works it’d be a curious bookend. But as an entree it reeks like rotten oysters, I’m almost too sick to allow the next course over. What is the perfect chaser to ‘Antwerp’? Perhaps Rob’s short musings on its dream-like reality. “An exploded fragmentary glimpse” at a condensed part of not-quite Chile. I don’t think this helps the book’s wider existence but it is a thoughtful and rewarding take nonetheless.
Oh shit, Rob observes this friend with an author relationship on the very next page. How meta this all is. Recurring columns collated is likely the second most intimate published thing to read beside a good autobiography. I’m guessing some of this extra material is extracted from that which was cut/less relevant at the time.
Oh man, I already wanted to read ‘Notes from Underground.’ Damn me and Rob have a similar relationship to books. I stopped reading for ‘Call of Duty.’ I stopped playing video games for school, I barely read then, aside from favourites, non-fiction on drama, and the odd captivating beautiful op-shop materialisations—thank you ‘Lanark.’ But then I started playing video games after school... in fact, spent a whole year on nothing but games! My movie watching was surrounded by these depressions and self-loathing that such mindless multiplayer experiences develop. And so I was 19 and I watched a movie “based on a novel” while being between depressive pits of empty battle royale and asymmetrical horror games. And it so happened that ‘The Collector’ by John Fowles sat on a shelf in this building. I read it avidly, critically, ultimately disappointed, but oh? Storytelling with intent and hopefully meaning, that is the stuff of life. Only instant gratification gets in the way when hard work is involved. I was glad to remember then, that I love reading.
6 Goodreads reviews at the time of starting this read. I assumed I’d be the several hundredth by now. As lost in the internet void as is close to private...
I can’t work more than twenty hours a week without perpetuating that depression alike the one I got from more recent ‘Call of Duty’ phases. In fact, I should’ve brought it up as these two fed each other beautifully. Washing dishes until my feet are sore from standing, and washing dishes for four hours longer, sometimes walking home through this city of hills, arriving an hour later, long after my phone died, dregs of energy spent swiping through tinder, wondering how likely or sane it’d be to find someone less than a kilometre away, and keen, and with my back dry with six hours of sweat I would find myself sitting on my bed, on which the controller was ready, instinctively switching it on, spending minutes trying to stand up and have a shower. The day after would be recovery from such an evening, but no less sad, and much emptier.
I think the ‘But Beautiful’ one could use another 50 words more than any so far. Which feels like a warm up to the lovely Geoff-Dyer-as-man piece following it. That’s nice. I do want to counter this idea that Dyer’s book makes you want to listen to music. Aside from the fact that I did listen to it, I was ecstatic with that representation of jazz that I got from this book. And, though good jazz can be enjoyable, and apparently tell a great story too, the silent life of ‘But Beautiful’s words on paper are a wholly different product than the art form it is inspired by.
Fuck me. The ‘Valis’ piece at once moved me (“I myself can no longer read his novels, [touching nostalgia]”) and then made me very anxious around the 300th word.
Spending most of what’s left after working 20 hours buying Norman Mailer’s ‘Advertisements for Myself’ when you’ve never read the man is a waste. But second hand books are urgently waiting for this money.
Bro. I had exactly the same experience when the end of my first screenplay was in sight. (I think Rob has also written about this somewhere else, different context?—‘Here Are the Young Men’?) Fears of terminal illness mainly. Sudden death. An annoying heart like mine coming into play. Now that the script is finished in some degree, it is nearly the same with that film’s production. Because, what if I’m the only one that understands how it might be realised as something worth watching?
Read over an evening, a day, and this morning. First time doing such a thing since at least some lockdown reading. Likely one of the only times I haven’t watched a movie between any of its pages (this could be a lie as I watched 3 movies the same day I started reading it...). Out of lockdown reading must’ve been ‘Normal People’ that I read as devotedly. Thinking about opinions on, savouring a good book. Because, from the outside, it looks like I got ‘Autobibliography’ out of the way, in fact I breathed it, and thought on it, and wrote because of it and about it. Doing that over a week in fits and starts would have been a seperate experience. Sometimes ‘Autobibliography’ didn’t breath back, its lung closing as I too held my breath until the next gasp. It doesn’t recede below my expectations of Doyle. And as a whole product it is rewarding and as lovely. As lovely a human thing and outpouring with love for many things.
I think I count as one of the people flirted with over social media. *blushs*
Read ‘Childish Things’ after, very relatable and human video game history and fascinations ranging from nostalgia to present day revelment.
(Also surprised at this observation of modern literature being very much influenced by social media stuff. The intimate personality narrating various things. Strange. It certainly is a nice kind of interesting rather than a normal fiction narrative!)
November 13, 2021
Rob Doyle writes with the sort of fizz and freedom that eludes far too many contemporary authors, (note -Threshold and This is the Ritual are the true high points of this freedom).
Perhaps it sounds asinine but I would liken it to someone who operates without social media or simply doesn't care about the twitter-sphere's opinions. Rob seems to alternate between both of these modes and more writers should do so.
While reading this short collection of musings on influential books in Rob's life it made me think of the phrase drilled into every lit-student's head on the first day of Uni. "The author is dead". That obstinate holdover of post-modern thought which we are deluded into thinking is radical but is in fact well over half a century old. Barthes would recoil in horror at the way his idea has been twisted to suit the growing egomania of the pseudo-psychoanalysts of the English department, but I digress.
I'd posit that in the post-post-modern era what we have is a Schrödinger's author state of being. The majority of literary authors are content to produce the socially acceptable polit-lit that has dominated since around 2010-11 until the present day. Not only do they enforce the death of the author by producing lifeless work but they seek to kill great authors of the past as well, bringing forth a list of supposed historical transgressions to hold in contrast to their own (boring) righteousness, but again, I digress.
The other side of the Schrödinger equation is a small band of outliers such as Doyle (Kushner, Teju Cole, Franzen, Knausgaard and others join him) who insist through their writing, that not only are THEY alive but the PAST is alive too. *Everything* is alive and the reader should reject all limitations, particularly those put in place by the internet mobs, academics and tabloid-ists. Those vampiric cultural gauleiters...
Although I wish this book was much longer, I was at least handily bolstered by a list of titles and authors to explore or return to next.
Perhaps it sounds asinine but I would liken it to someone who operates without social media or simply doesn't care about the twitter-sphere's opinions. Rob seems to alternate between both of these modes and more writers should do so.
While reading this short collection of musings on influential books in Rob's life it made me think of the phrase drilled into every lit-student's head on the first day of Uni. "The author is dead". That obstinate holdover of post-modern thought which we are deluded into thinking is radical but is in fact well over half a century old. Barthes would recoil in horror at the way his idea has been twisted to suit the growing egomania of the pseudo-psychoanalysts of the English department, but I digress.
I'd posit that in the post-post-modern era what we have is a Schrödinger's author state of being. The majority of literary authors are content to produce the socially acceptable polit-lit that has dominated since around 2010-11 until the present day. Not only do they enforce the death of the author by producing lifeless work but they seek to kill great authors of the past as well, bringing forth a list of supposed historical transgressions to hold in contrast to their own (boring) righteousness, but again, I digress.
The other side of the Schrödinger equation is a small band of outliers such as Doyle (Kushner, Teju Cole, Franzen, Knausgaard and others join him) who insist through their writing, that not only are THEY alive but the PAST is alive too. *Everything* is alive and the reader should reject all limitations, particularly those put in place by the internet mobs, academics and tabloid-ists. Those vampiric cultural gauleiters...
Although I wish this book was much longer, I was at least handily bolstered by a list of titles and authors to explore or return to next.
March 4, 2025
I always end up reading what Rob Doyle writes eventually.
This collection of his columns of book recommendations mixed with some biography in snapshot and possibly fictionalised form. He tends to go for transgressive fiction and continental philosophy, which to varying degrees is right up my alley. He takes us through some of the classics you'd expect, but obviously has a good handle on literature and suggested to me lots of literary oddities I hadn't heard of before. I'll be right onto some of these after finishing the book.
If you're looking for a detailed write up on any of these books, you will be disappointed. The format is a brief one and a half pages per book, made up of a brief summation of the authors life and output along with some personal context and the briefest of descriptions of the book itself. He does, however, have a gift for making you want to read these books, even despite the brevity.
On the biography between the bibliography- I do tend to get a bit tired of him wanting me to dislike him, unearthing new confessions of malfeasance to shock me with, but I do keep coming back somehow, book after book. There is a self-consciousness about his pose as a troubled/troublesome gentleman of transgressive fiction that rather undermines the savage truthfulness that so much transgression reaches for. He also definitely thinks he is shocking you more than he is. That said, I guess, like most people, I recognise myself and society in general in this strange mixture of self-consciousness and fearless confession.
This collection of his columns of book recommendations mixed with some biography in snapshot and possibly fictionalised form. He tends to go for transgressive fiction and continental philosophy, which to varying degrees is right up my alley. He takes us through some of the classics you'd expect, but obviously has a good handle on literature and suggested to me lots of literary oddities I hadn't heard of before. I'll be right onto some of these after finishing the book.
If you're looking for a detailed write up on any of these books, you will be disappointed. The format is a brief one and a half pages per book, made up of a brief summation of the authors life and output along with some personal context and the briefest of descriptions of the book itself. He does, however, have a gift for making you want to read these books, even despite the brevity.
On the biography between the bibliography- I do tend to get a bit tired of him wanting me to dislike him, unearthing new confessions of malfeasance to shock me with, but I do keep coming back somehow, book after book. There is a self-consciousness about his pose as a troubled/troublesome gentleman of transgressive fiction that rather undermines the savage truthfulness that so much transgression reaches for. He also definitely thinks he is shocking you more than he is. That said, I guess, like most people, I recognise myself and society in general in this strange mixture of self-consciousness and fearless confession.
January 26, 2023
Doyle is (a) obviously a good writer, and (b) very widely read. So widely that most of the books he writes about are ones I've never heard of, or at best, the authors I've heard of but the books I've not read.
Okay, so what.
I gave up on this book after enjoying some of the early parts because Doyle seems fixated on telling us about his ongoing drug-taking, his considerable sexual involvement with women far and wide, and his general feelings of nihilism. Mostly this occurs in the italicized sections he gives after his 300-word comments on a particular book. But the books are mostly by even equally nihilistic writers, or ones who've given up writing novels and write books about themselves thinking about writing novels; or books in which absolutely nothing happens and somehow this works, and so on.
Yes, there are a few well-known titles there: Moby Dick makes it, Marcus Aurelius gets a look in. But the writers in general are people whose view of life seems to be at the miserable end. Highly intelligent, but miserable.
Okay, so what.
I gave up on this book after enjoying some of the early parts because Doyle seems fixated on telling us about his ongoing drug-taking, his considerable sexual involvement with women far and wide, and his general feelings of nihilism. Mostly this occurs in the italicized sections he gives after his 300-word comments on a particular book. But the books are mostly by even equally nihilistic writers, or ones who've given up writing novels and write books about themselves thinking about writing novels; or books in which absolutely nothing happens and somehow this works, and so on.
Yes, there are a few well-known titles there: Moby Dick makes it, Marcus Aurelius gets a look in. But the writers in general are people whose view of life seems to be at the miserable end. Highly intelligent, but miserable.
August 27, 2021
This was not what I expected - at all - and I can't help but feel that it is a wasted opportunity. Analysing reading experiences in tandem with life experiences is such an interesting idea, but this felt like a slog on the whole. Worse still, Doyle is *so* condescending throughout that I very much struggled to get on board.
It is, all the same, an inspired range of literature which has left me with a measurably inflated reading list! Doyle's insights are equally novel, and what could easily become an amalgamation of reviews invites you deep into the author's life in a really enjoyable way. It's fun, and remarkably honest, but I just couldn't shake off the strange tone it carries.
Really, I'd recommend it anyway to anybody interested in the discussion of books. Which is surely you, if you're reading this.
Fittingly, this marks my 2021 reading goal set in June complete!
It is, all the same, an inspired range of literature which has left me with a measurably inflated reading list! Doyle's insights are equally novel, and what could easily become an amalgamation of reviews invites you deep into the author's life in a really enjoyable way. It's fun, and remarkably honest, but I just couldn't shake off the strange tone it carries.
Really, I'd recommend it anyway to anybody interested in the discussion of books. Which is surely you, if you're reading this.
Fittingly, this marks my 2021 reading goal set in June complete!
November 11, 2021
Rob Doyle! Need I say more? I don't think I've ever read a word he's written that I didn't enjoy. and Autobibliography is no different. It's a book for story lovers.written by a story teller. Rob Doyle maybe my favourite male Irish writer of our times. Genuinely enjoyable book..
April 6, 2022
These short pieces about books are balanced with italicized autobiographical sketches--interesting, innovative, and informative. Everything a good book should be!
March 10, 2023
Only just a four for his eclectic reading. Rob Doyle comes across as a person with quite a few issues but has an obvious love of literature.
February 8, 2023
This book is an insight into one man's reading life. All books covered are before the end of the 20th century and his review was limited to a 340 word article published weekly in the Irish Times during the 2020 lockdown. Each article has a snippet from his own life and how the book affected him - or sometimes it's just the reflection.
Moby Dick is his best one but you have to be a long way into this book before you get to that page 500 Captain Ahab epiphany. Next up is the comparison with soccer for the Borges review where he weaves in Pele's performance in the 1970 world cup - although he wasn't alive then.
After Camus he's got a brilliant few paragraphs on which novels we read and when we read them and where we read them. which ones we finished which ones we left on trains and wondered how they finished.
Doyle says that the books chosen are what was a available to him down in a house in Rosslare. I'm not sure I believe him there but it does give him a license to go to the fringes. That book shortage reminds me of the woman I met in early pandemic 2020. She was bringing back eight books to the small box library in our local park during lockdown. She told me she had no other source of books and no other source of comfort they were keeping her sane.
None of the Irish Canon are included in this book - a deliberate choice since he had just done an Irish anthology.
Overall, this book has a little bit of the magic of lockdown. My five stars for that alone.
Moby Dick is his best one but you have to be a long way into this book before you get to that page 500 Captain Ahab epiphany. Next up is the comparison with soccer for the Borges review where he weaves in Pele's performance in the 1970 world cup - although he wasn't alive then.
After Camus he's got a brilliant few paragraphs on which novels we read and when we read them and where we read them. which ones we finished which ones we left on trains and wondered how they finished.
Doyle says that the books chosen are what was a available to him down in a house in Rosslare. I'm not sure I believe him there but it does give him a license to go to the fringes. That book shortage reminds me of the woman I met in early pandemic 2020. She was bringing back eight books to the small box library in our local park during lockdown. She told me she had no other source of books and no other source of comfort they were keeping her sane.
None of the Irish Canon are included in this book - a deliberate choice since he had just done an Irish anthology.
Overall, this book has a little bit of the magic of lockdown. My five stars for that alone.
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