Imprint
- Hachette Books Ireland
- Hachette Books Ireland
Memoirs, Prose: non-fiction
TALKING TO STRANGERS, from the bestselling author of STARING AT LAKES and HANGING WITH THE ELEPHANT, is a book about love, about the stories we share with others, and the stories we leave behind us.
'It's always a bad idea to go online and book a flight when you've had too much wine. You never know where you might end up.'
This was how Michael Harding found himself in a strange flat in Bucharest in January 2015, which set the tone for the rest of the year.
After a stint in the Gaiety Theatre production of The Field, Harding returned to the tranquil hills above Lough Allen and began to imagine what his little cottage might look like if he got a few builders to tear a hole in the wall to add on another room. Surely an extension would give him a renewed sense of purpose in life, as he approached old age.
But as the walls of his home crumbled, so too did his mental health, and he fell, once again, into depression -- that great darkness where life feels like nothing more than a waste of time.
And yet, it is in that great darkness that we discover what really makes us human.
Praise for Talking to Strangers: And other ways of being human
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A compelling memoir. Absorbing and graced with a deceptive lightness of touch ... Harding writes like an angel - Sunday Times on Hanging with the Elephant
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An edifying journey of self-discovery - Irish Mail on Sunday on Hanging with the Elephant
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Wonderful ... Like many people who have achieved a great deal, [Harding] cannot recognise his triumphs. This book, like its predecessor, is one of them - John Boyne, Irish Times on Hanging with the Elephant
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Harding is a self-deprecating and winsome writer whose bittersweet musings on middle-age, loneliness and the search for spiritual enlightenment in post-Catholic Ireland are leavened by an incredibly dry and unforced wit. However, it's the sections in which Harding focuses on his relationship with his mother... that Hanging with the Elephant reaches lump-in-throat-inducing levels of poignancy - Metro Herald on Hanging with the Elephant
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Often funny, occasionally disturbing and not without its moments of deep sadness, Harding has peeled back his soul and held it out on the palm of his hand for all to see - Christine Dwyer Hickey on Hanging with the Elephant
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It's rare for a memoir to demand such intense emotional involvement, and rarer still for it to be so fully rewarded - Sunday Times on Staring at Lakes
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I read this book in one sitting ... it held me and wouldn't let go - Mary McEvoy, Irish Independent on Staring at Lakes
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This memoir grabs you from the outset and holds you right to the end. Harding traverses the human soul and excavates its deepest secrets. His language sings. Extraordinary - Deirdre Purcell on Staring at Lakes
Michael Harding
Michael Harding has worked in theatre as an actor, director and writer. Most widely known as the author of such plays as Strawboys, Una Pooka, Misogynist, Hubert Murray's Widow, Sour Grapes, and Amazing Grace, all produced by the Abbey Theatre, and more than a dozen other plays for leading Irish Companies, including The Kiss, Talking Through his Hat, and Swallow.
He has directed for The Abbey Theatre, The Project Arts Centre, and Red Kettle, and has worked as a performer with many distinguished theatre companies such as Siamsa Tire, Blue Raincoat, The Abbey Theatre and Gare St. Lazare.He was Writer in Association with The National Theatre in 1993, and Writer Fellow at Trinity College in 2001, and has received numerous awards for his theatre work, including The Stewart Parker Award, The Bank of Ireland RTE Award, and Best Male Performer at Dublin Theatre Fringe Festival.
His most recent work, The Tinker's Curse, toured Ireland in 2011.
He is the author of three novels: Priest, The Trouble with Sarah Gullion and Bird in the Snow.
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