Six Good “DART” Books
Over the last three years, I have been commuting by DART into Dublin city center. The DART is a railway network serving the coastline and the city center of Dublin, Ireland. This 25 minute each way journey for five days of the week offers a chance to read a few pages. A good DART book is realistically just a good book, which offers some escapism from your current surroundings and makes you think a bit differently.
For half of the journey into town, the sea of Dublin bay passes by on the right of the train. It is a beautiful, calming sight as you journey into town, in contrast to to the often busy, noisy city center.
Thinking back, I have built up quite a few “DART” books. Many of them have been really useful for different reasons, for example learning a new topic (“Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money” by “Nathaniel Popper”), developing new career skills (“Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities” by “David Airy”), or learning from inspirational people: (“Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future” by “Ashlee Vance”). But six of the books, in no particular order, that I found the most enjoyable are listed below:
In this list of six books there is an even mix of the genres “Historical Fiction”, “Biography” and “Black Comedy”. The books were all published 1958 and 2015, with the rating between 3.6 and 4.3 out of 5 on www.goodreads.com.
Of the six books, I feel the most “DART” book in the list is “Strumpet City” which is set in Dublin and in which the story moves between locations of Queenstown (modern-day Dun Laoghaire) and Dublin city center, both of which are on the DART line. Set around the time of the 1913 Dublin Lock-out, it details life in Dublin during that period.
“Pure” is a novel set in Paris just before the French Revolution. Voted Costa Book of the Year 2011, it follows an engineer who is tasked with the removal of the Les Innocents cemetery and it church.
“Conversations With My Father – Jack Kyle” is the book with the fewest reviews, 11, on Goodreads. It is a fascinating biography on the life of ex-Irish rugby player Jack Kyle. Jack Kyle played for Ireland and the Lions for ten years, before moving to Zambia to work as a surgeon for 30 years.
The famous black comedy “Trainspotting” is set in Edinburgh and includes some hilarious scenes of the characters antics. Reading it led me to read more from Irvine Welsh on the same characters.
“Our man in Havana” is a book from the brilliant writer Graham Greene. Set in Cuba before the Cuban missile crisis, the author makes fun of intelligence services, and their willingness to believe reports from their local informants.
“Confessions of a Rugby Mercenary” is a very interesting auto-biography from an ex-professional rugby player. It offers a glimpse into the life of a New Zealand born journeyman player in France, whilst also giving some history on the french teams.
