This is a debut novel, but one which has been widely praised for its atmospheric treatment of the theme. The Dutch interiors, so familiar from paintings, here become the setting in the house and in the miniature doll’s house version of it, the setting for a playing out of the injunction of St Luke that…

This is a ‘reimagining’ of  the Jane Austen novel, the second in a series. This may seem a strange sort of project, but the result, with the abbey now set in the Scottish Borders, a far cry from the genteel settings of Jane Austen’s original. But this novel too is great fun, which indeed is…

A last look round the Binchy estate so to speak in this set of tales concerning the varied residents of Chestnut Street, which readers of Minding Frankie will recall is just around the corner from St Jarlath’s Crescent. These are warm and entertaining tales of the kind of suburban life which was very much Maeve…

Teenagers Translated: How to Raise Happy Teens by Nancy and Naella Grew (Vermillion, €15.00 / £11.99)

Surplus People: from Wicklow to Canada by Jim Rees (Collins Press, €12.99 / £11.99)

It will be a familiar Sunday scene to many: the parents at Mass praying and participating, their children restless, bored and uninvolved in the service they attend. The congregation will be mostly older parishioners and couples with children. There will be few teenagers and almost no young adults. This indifference, this lack of interest will…

John Quinn will already be a familiar figure to many readers, from both his days with RTÉ, but also his previous publications including the popular Goodnight Ballivor, I’ll Sleep in Trim. This new book is a collection of encounters with well known figures around the country in very different areas of life. They were asked…

We hear a great deal these days about the right to privacy. The European Court ruling on the matter of what can be carried by Google on the internet is only the latest point of controversy. Earlier claims that, for example, the police could not release the names of convicted criminals who had absconded or…