Three Monkeys Online

A Curious, Alternative Magazine

M.OConnor

Petal Falls – April Cope

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

Sweet country music from North Carolina singer-songwriter April Cope

Back to Black – Amy Winehouse

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

’50s inspired record of the moment from the female ‘Pete Doherty’.

A Weekend in the City – Bloc Party

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

Bloc Party’s second album, veering close to being a concept album, but in this case, that’s not such a bad thing.

Coles Corner – Richard Hawley

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

Third solo album from sheffield’s Richard Hawley, one time guitarist with both the Longpigs and Pulp.

(Come on feel the) Illinoise – Sufjan Stevens

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

Sufjan Stevens’ second album as part of his 50 great states project. Illinoise is, dare we say it, a ‘concept’ album.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

The 11th studio album from U2, How to Dismantle and Atomic Bomb has already debuted at #1 in charts around the world, but is it any good?

True Things About Me – Deborah Kay Davies

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

There’s a moment, about 80 pages into Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, when what appears to be a reasonably conventional novel takes a disorientating twist (an anecdote about a visit to a Swiss mental asylum), before returning on track. Thereafter, throughout that lengthy novel gaps continously appear where it seems that if you but scratch the realism […]

Stories – edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

The American Academic Cass R. Sunstein has an interesting argument in his book Republic.com.2.0 Revenge of the Blogs, that the abundance of information, choice, and social networking available on the internet ultimately leads to a more restricted closed culture. For a well functioning system of free expression, Sunstein argues, there are certain requirements that go […]

The Country Girls – by Edna O’Brien

Monday, May 10th, 2010

I discovered Samuel Beckett’s Murphy after a Friday-night friend boozily extolled its dark and comic virtues (‘he wants his ashes to be flushed down the jacks of the Abbey theatre, but instead they get spilled in a barfight!’).  In similar circumstances I’ve had the good luck to stumble upon great books by writers as varied […]

Naming the Bones – Louise Welsh

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

The more I think back on Louise Welsh’s latest novel, Naming the Bones, which I finished just over two weeks ago, the more quietly impressed I am by it.  And if that seems like damning with faint praise, nothing could be further from the truth.  While the novel has a narrative arc that brings its […]