'Dublin was O'Brien's ground -- its talk, whether official bombast, idle pub chat or literary pretentiousness, his medium and his target. Mastery of syntax enabled him to turn plain language to music, while a merciless clarity of mind exposed the comic absurdity of 'those items of mortified language' which are the conversational coin of his Dubliners. A very funny book.' Sunday Times 'All those man-years of attendance at Grogan's and the Dolphin filled O'Brien's remarkable 'ear-cup' with curiosa of Dublin talk. A priceless estate-sale of alien and gorgeous vocabulary. Timeless.' Nicholson Baker 'Brilliant, morosely inventive comic turns devoted to O'Brien's favourite topics: the literary life, the Gaelic Revival, civil service bureaucracy, booze and its discontent.' Observer '"The Best of Myles" is likely to endure as long as the philosopher's stone, and may indeed be the said article. Readers of taste and perception will pack it in their kitbags long before glancing at the likes of Barthes, Foucault and Umberto Eco.' Listener

Flann O'Brien was one of the many pseudonyms of Brian O'Nolan, author of the classic novel 'At Swim- Two-Birds' and, under the name Myles na Gopaleen, writer of a celebrated satirical column in the Irish Times which appeared daily for almost thirty years. Highly praised by Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, amongst others, O'Brien is regarded as one of the great comic writers of the twentieth century. He died in 1966.