PERSONALS: The Human Stories Behind the Small Ads

'Charming and often moving...The Personals is full of great stories - from sad to quirky to funny to the odd time baffling - as Brian tracks down the back-story to such unusual items for sale as a pair of monkeys, Leaving Cert notes, a cross-dressing dress-up service, German Army helmets from World War One and a bullet proof car among more mundane subjects. In other words, life in all its madness and glory.' - RTE Guide. This charming and moving look at the world of The Personals reveals how classified adverts are not just a few commercial lines of text in print or online but can be a treasure trove of stories of love, loss, loneliness, redemption and hope. In his quirky and insightful adventure O'Connell finds the humanity behind the typeface like a long engagement, a marriage worth waiting for, making it big in Hollywood or giving a doll?s house a home. All the stories are quite recent in the last ten years and documents snapshots of modern life in Ireland today. Part of the book is about items for sale but even that goes off-piste when an ad for a ring turns into a discussion about dementia, or a poster for sale reveals the struggles of independent shops in rural Ireland. 277pp, illus.