A Night Out with Robert Burns: The Greatest Poems |
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Robert Burns
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Pages: 256 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 1841959928
Pub: Canongate Books
Pub date: 2008-01-24
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 128242
Reader Reviews:
poems to sing (0/0 people found this helpful)
I'm a big fan of Scottish folk songs which includes a lot of Burns put to music. What I love about this book, that a friend was reading out last night, is how the stories make the poems come alive, just like music.
A Poet for All Seasons (2/2 people found this helpful)
As a child growing up in Canada I read Robert Burns in an edition whose pages were thick with glosses, which, while they managed to translate what was for me a new language, also managed to obscure the poetry of it all. Here, in Canongate's elegant new edition of Burns' work, Andrew O'Hagan expels all the clutter from the page and lets the language stand on its own: luminous and lusty, brawny and graceful. The insightful introductions to the poems weave the personal with the scholarly, the modern world with the world of Burns, and poetry with life. And for all of us language-lovers there is a delicious glossary at the back of the book, full of words like aizle (ember), skellpie-limmer (a hussy), and thraw (twist).
Like a box of chocolates... (2/2 people found this helpful)
I picked up this beautifully-produced book with a Scottish friend in mind, and we both liked the way Andrew O'Hagan links the greatest Burns poems with contemporary news / talking-head quotes and personal stories. It makes you realise how roving and exotic for the times Burns' life was. But the poems also speak for themselves, and the book introduced me to a few I'd overlooked before. Great idea to set up the two writers!
Ach aye, pal! (1/1 people found this helpful)
With Burns night tomorrow, the Lazarou household is preparing the haggis, neeps and tatties and practicing our Burns apace. My daughter handed me a copy of this wonderful book. I was vaguely aware of Andrew O Hagan before I opened it but was really taken aback by just how insightful and personal his reflections are. It's one for the Burns specialists and ex-pat enthusiasts alike!
A ground-breaking edition of Burns' work that will delight old and new fans in equal measure (6/7 people found this helpful)
What Andrew O'Hagan has created here is an edition of Burns that deserves to be read not just by anyone who cares about poetry but also for O'Hagan's own pieces which range from the fascinating to the funny to the moving and melancholic. Each poem is preceded by a short opener, a piece that offers a way in to a specific poem. As Ewan McGregor says on the back of the book "People who find it hard to get into Robert Burns have the answer to their prayers with this book. Here are the greatest poems presented in a way that Burns himself would have enjoyed - letting the poems chime and rhyme with the debates that surround us in the world today".
The book also has a stunning original poem by Seamus Heaney, A Birl for Burns as he calls it, that is worth the price of admission alone.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It's changed the way I think about poetry and already I have given copies to a number of friends who have been similarly delighted.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Special Features -> Search Inside!
Books -> Subjects -> Poetry, Drama & Criticism -> Poetry -> General AAS
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Hardcover
Books -> Refinements -> Condition (condition-type)