BBC reporter Delaney’s fictionalized history of his native country, an Irish bestseller, is a sprawling, riveting* read, a book of stories melding into a novel wrapped up in an Irish history text.

    In 1951, when Ronan O’Mara is 9, he meets the aging itinerant* storyteller, who emerges out a “silver veil” of Irish mist, hoping to trade a story for a hot meal. Welcomed inside, the storyteller lights his pipe and begins, telling of the architect of Newgrange, who built “a marvelous, immortal structure... before Stonehenge in England, before the pyramids of Egypt,” and the dentally challenged King Conor of Ulster, who tried, and failed, to outsmart his wife.

    The stories fascinate the young Ronan, and they’ll draw readers in, too, with their warriors and kings, drinkers and devils, all rendered cleanly and without undue sentimentality. When Ronan’s mother drives away the storyteller for telling a blasphemous* tale, Ronan vows to find him. He also becomes fascinated* by Irish myth and legend, and, as the years pass, he discovers his own gift for storytelling. Eventually, he sets off, traveling Ireland on foot to find his mentor. Past and present weave together as Delaney entwines the lives of the storyteller and Ronan in this rich and satisfying book.

    Called “the most eloquent* man in the world” by NPR, Delaney, over a career of interviews that has lasted more than three decades, and an international best-selling author himself, has interviewed more than 3,500 of the world’s most important writers.

    The book is available at amazon.cn.

    (SD-Agencies)