Lifestyle

In my library: Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle just pulled another Rabbitte book out of his hat: “The Guts,” in which the Booker Prize-winning writer returns to Jimmy Rabbitte, the soul-music-loving Dubliner of Doyle’s famous first novel, “The Commitments.”

That book became a 1991 hit film and, as of October, a London musical. Even so, Doyle says, his life didn’t change overnight: “I went to the Irish premiere of the movie, which was a great night. But I got up the following morning and went to work in the high school I taught in at the time.” He says Jimmy was created during Ireland’s recession of 1986, “so I thought it might be a good idea to bring him back in this latest recession, 27 years older, but still in love with music.”

Here’s what’s in Doyle’s library.

Sweet Soul Music
by Peter Guralnick

I read “Sweet Soul Music” around the same time that I was writing “The Commitments.” It is a brilliant history of soul music, its pioneers and geniuses. My head was full of this wonderful book and its music as I wrote. If “The Commitments” has a grandfather, it’s Peter Guralnick.

At Swim Two Birds
by Flann O’Brien

Two discoveries in one summer, 1975: “At Swim Two Birds,” and Guinness. It is a mad novel, set in Dublin; the characters turn on the writer. I was 17 when I read it, and it showed me that the accent of my city, Dublin, could be captured on paper, and hilariously. I’m not sure what the Guinness showed me, but I still like it.

David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens

When I was a child, I wanted to be a soccer player. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a rock star. Now I want to be Charles Dickens. I think I’ve read this novel five times — roughly once every 10 years — and it only seems to get better.

The Whisperers
by Orlando Figes

An upsetting and exhilarating book about private family life in Stalin’s Russia, and the lengths people went to — often thousands of miles and great personal danger — to hold their families together. Much of my work homes in on private moments, and I often think of this book as I write: to remind myself that the freedom to hold hands, give an opinion, shout — can’t always be taken for granted.