memoirs of an old Irish 

Timothy O ´Grady and Steve Pyke: I Could Read the Sky 

I am yet again in Ireland, going back and forth to England (Oh how I have loved these Irish books this year, too. They have a flare of their own, the mentality of the characters, the way of saying things, seeing the beauty in rural, in poor, in grey. )

Two artist combined and they created something powerful, beautiful, real, even magical. 

This is book that has it´s beauty as a physical book. There are the black and white photos of Steve Pyke and to strengthen, accompany, broaden, deepen there is the prose of Timothy O ´Grady. 

This is a story of Irish emigration. 

There is an old man. He lies alone. He is sleepless in London. Maybe because of his near ending, maybe because of his vivid memories of his childhood in the West of Ireland. He tells us his story, his migrant ´s life. Oh the poor land of Ireland, the poor land of England. Oh the poor people living on it. It ´s animals. It ´s stories and lives. The man leaves his home in Ireland and he goes to yet another kind of poor living. He works on the potato fields, on pig farms, on building sites. He boxed. He talks about his music, the women he loved and me, the reader, I felt his pain, his sorrow, the weight on his shoulders. Yet, it had hope. 

I loved this book, its words, it´s photos. 

The stories it gives out.