Biography & Autobiography

Full of historical facts, anecdotes and Dublin wit, this book evokes the spirit, the characters and colours, the sights, sounds and even the smells of old Dublin. With sections on markets, pawn shops, street characters, the 'liberties', slang and wit of Dublin's newspapers, the city's history is traced right back to Brian Boru, the Huguenots, the 'debtors' prison', and Dublin's troubled history of risings and revolutions.

Only available through www.obrien.ie, these copies are signed by the author.

Inside this Instaread Summary of Brain on Fire:

Summary of the book

Important People

Character Analysis

Analysis of the Themes and Author's Style

Summary of Disrupted by Dan Lyons | Includes Analysis

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Disrupted by Dan Lyons is a memoir about Lyons's experiences as a middle-aged career journalist who takes a job in marketing at a startup. For years, Lyons wrote for Newsweek about technology and was well-known for starting a popular satirical blog about Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. At age 51, he lost his job in the magazine's downsizing. He started looking for another job right away to support his young children and his wife, who had just quit her job for health reasons.

The media industry had changed substantially from the time Lyons...

John Adams by David McCullough | Includes Analysis

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David McCullough's John Adams is a biography designed to establish Adams's place beside, or even above, better known figures such as Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington in the pantheon of national founders. It was published in 2001 and won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. It was adapted into an HBO miniseries in 2008.

Adams was the son of a farmer in the small town of Braintree, Massachusetts. His family recognized his intelligence and talent and invested in his education; his father sold...

Summary of Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick | Includes Analysis

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Nathaniel Philbrick's Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution focuses on the treachery of Benedict Arnold as it plays out against the wider panorama of the American Revolution.

Benedict Arnold was a courageous officer who was responsible for a number of crucial American victories during the Revolution. His brilliant conduct of the Battle of Valcour Island at Lake Champlain in 1776 delayed British forces and prevented them from reaching the Hudson River valley. Had...

Summary of Washington by Ron Chernow | Includes Analysis

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Ron Chernow's 2010 biography Washington: A Life is a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of George Washington's life from birth to death. It is based on newly available archival material from the most recent edition of Washington's papers, which allows Chernow to focus on Washington as a public and especially as a private figure. For example, the biography dwells on Washington's relationship with his difficult mother, Mary.

Washington was known for his tight self-control and his refusal to show emotions. Beneath his calm exterior, however,...

Summary of Bare Bones by Bobby Bones | Includes Analysis

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In his memoir Bare Bones: I'm Not Lonely If You're Reading This Book, country music radio personality Bobby Bones, whose birth name is Bobby Estell, looks back on his life so far. Bobby, who was 36 at the time of its 2016 publication, reflects on his successful and storied career, which has spanned three radio stations. He also explains how his difficult childhood has had an ambivalent legacy in his adult life: it has fueled his near-superhuman work ethic and severely stunted his personal relationships.

Bobby was raised by his mother...

“Pour Me a Life is an unapologet­ically honest, raw, and often har­rowing account of the life of a man who, up until now, we only thought we knew. Here is A.A. Gill at his best. A real-life Bright Lights, Big City.”

In the fourteen years that A. E. Hotchner traveled with Ernest Hemingway, he collected a lifetime's worth of Hemingway's experiences, anecdotes, and observations on the backs of matchbooks, napkins, and slips of paper. Speaking on everything from war to women to writing, Hemingway's words are at turns funny and poignant, revealing a rich portrait of the American literary giant and the world he took by storm.

Complete with black-and-white photographs that cover nearly two decades of Hemingway's life, The Good Life According to Hemingway is an exuberant celebration of his remarkable genius and...

Farmer's Glory was first published in 1932. It was A. G. Street's first book and remains his most famous. In his own modest words 'This book is simply an attempt to give a pen picture of farming life in Southern England and Western Canada.' It succeeds memorably.

Compton Mackenzie, reviewing it in the Daily Mail, wrote, 'Let me recommend it to the general public as a model of unpretentious English, an enthralling picture of rural life on both sides of the Atlantic, a manual of deadly common sense, and a thing of beauty. It will go on the shelf of my library with Cobbett's Rural Rides and White's...