Author Archives: Tim Hehir

Those of us unlucky enough to have grown up with younger siblings know how annoying they can be at times. But what if your little sister was more than annoying? What if she was a psychopath? I don’t mean psychopath in the metaphorical or hyperbolic sense but in the actual medical diagnosis sense. What if your ten year old sister was clever, charming, manipulative, callous and completely lacking in empathy? What if you had to ask her to promise not to kill anyone and not to trick someone else into killing anyone?

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The conceit of The Time Travel Handbook – 18 journeys from the eruption of Vesuvius to the Woodstock Festival is brilliant in its simplicity—it is a guide for time travellers, telling them what to expect on their trip to one of 18 historical destinations offered by the travel company.

The trips vary widely, from the peasants’ revolt of 1381 to the Rumble in the Jungle of 1974; from birth of the French Revolution to the loving mayhem of Woodstock. The Handbook gives a minutely researched account of what happened, who you might meet, what you might see, hear and eat, bringing it alive to help you make the best of your trip back in time.

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Thirteen Ways of Looking is a book of three short stories plus a novella.

The book was in the process of being written when the author, Colum McCann, was assaulted and hospitalised after he went to the aid of a woman who was being attacked by her husband. At the end of the book McCann invites readers to go to his website colummccann.com to read his Victim Impact Statement.

McCann’s stories of varying degrees of human suffering are never mawkish or laboured in their execution, but finely written and strangely uplifting. He has not, like some other authors, gone to the extremes of the human condition as an easy source of drama but, I think because he has the insight and skill to shine a light on it. The book is an attempt to connect us more with our fellow human beings rather than an exploitative romp through misery. Continue reading

Matt Haig’s Christmas tale for children explains how a Finnish boy named Nikolas became Father Christmas. You know the one, the fat bloke in the red suit who delivers presents to all the children of the world on Christmas night using only a sled and flying reindeer.

The story begins with Nikolas and his father, a nine and a half-fingered woodchopper, eking out a meagre living in the forest. One day Joel the hunter calls at their isolated cottage with a job offer for his father—to join an expedition to go north in search of Elfhelm, the mythical home of the elves.

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