The World of Books By the books editor The announcement that Peregrine Cavendish, the 12th Duke of Devonshire, based in England, has presented the celebrated Book of Lismore to University College Cork, comes as a delightful surprise. In effect, some might say, it give Munster an ancient book to play off against Leinster’s Book of…
Inspiring Faith Communities: A Programme of Evangelisation by Michael Hurley (Messenger Publications, €12.95/£11.95) Inspiring Faith Communities: A Programme of Evangelisation: a Booklet for Renewal in the Holy Spirit by Michael Hurley (Messenger Publications, €4.95 / £4.50) These two books together make up a way forward for renewal. It is built up around three points that seem essential…
Wandering Wicklow with Father Browne edited by Robert O’Byrne (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£18.95) The latest volume in the series of books drawn from the files of one of Ireland’s greatest photographers under the auspices of the Irish Jesuits is one of the best, for several reasons. It has a limited subject, finely produced. It was been edited…
Fearfully & Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image by Dr Paul Brand & Philip Yancey (Hodder Books, £9.99; kindle edition, £9.99) These days, with the daily news dominated by medical fears of all kinds and our inability to cope, many people all too conscious of the frailties of the human body and the effects that…
The World of Books By the books editor Just over a week ago, to men driving along a mountain road around Saint-Martin-Vésubie (see the Nice-Matin newspaper’s website for its report of October 24, 2020), were astonished to encounter a pack of wolves straddling the road ahead. These it seems were not truly ‘wild wolves’. They…
The World of Books By the books editor Once again, thanks largely it seems to a very human impatience to be done, once and for all, with the pandemic, lockdown restrictions have returned because so many, especially in Dublin and Kildare, could not wait as calmly as we should for ‘normal life to return’. But…
At this time of the year, with the leaves changing colour and beginning to fall, the lines in the banner above from Sonnet LXXIII are always in my mind, especially with their hint of a Catholic outlook in Shakespeare (a much-discussed topic today, more so than it once was), through its allusion to the systematic…
Fearfully & Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image by Dr Paul Brand & Philip Yancey (Hodder Books, £9.99; Kindle edition, £9.99) These days, with the daily news dominated by medical fears of all kinds and our inability to cope, many people all too conscious of the frailties of the human body and the effects that…
The Old Gunner and his Medals by Brendan Lynch (Mountjoy Publishing, €12.00; ISBN 978-0-9513668-3-7) Brendan Lynch’s novel, published at the age of 80, is (all going well) an Irish classic in the making. The novel never misses a step. From beginning to end it reads flawlessly as an account of a darker side of Irish history…
The Bible. A Story that makes sense of Life by Andrew Ollerton (Hodder & Stoughton, £14. 99; available in bookshops this month) The Bible, from Genesis to the Epistles, provides the common ground for belief for Christians of all tradition, East and West. And yet again, from East to West, they have drawn such varied notions…