Bad Blood

Written in Toibin's (that's the way we spell it round my way) characteristically spare prose this account of a walk along the Irish border is by turns depressing, humourous and hopeful. It's written at a time when there seeemed to be no end to the conflict in sight, but it treats people on both sides of the divide with equally non-judgemental respect. It's a work of travel writing as much as political journalism, and he seems to find wildness and exoxiticsm in an area 300 miles away from where he was himself born.