Live While You Can: A memoir of faith, hope and the power of acceptance by Fr Tony Coote (Hachette Books Ireland, €15.99 / £13.99) Dancing to my Death with the Love Called Cancer by Daniel O’Leary (Columba Books, €16.99 / £14.99) It has often been said that in polite western society death is the…
Mainly About Books By the books editor The other day there came into my hands a unique book, quite unknown I think to readers outside Italy. It is called Monte Cassino under Fire: War Diaries from the Abbey, by Eusebio Grossetti and Martino Matronola, edited by Faustino Avagliano (Abbazia di Montecassino, 2018). My father…
The Badly Behaved Bible: Thinking again about the story of Scripture by Nick Page (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99) This is a book which many people really need, but do not realise that they do. Anyone truly interested in the power of the Scriptures should read it. I suspect that for many people it may have a…
The History and Heritage of St James’s Hospital Dublin by Davis Coakley & Mary Coakley (Four Courts Press, €40.00) These days the site at St James’s Hospital has become a controversial place due to the development scheme for the National Children’s hospital, which has in recent times been taking up so much space in the newspapers.…
Shaping Ireland: Landscapes in Irish Art National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square, Dublin Beit Wing Rooms 6-10, Exhibition runs to July 7 These days, when everyone is so conscious of the world around them and with environmental matters, it will come as a surprise to many to discover that the admiration of landscape is quite…
Every Tribe: Stories of diverse saints serving a diverse world edited by Sharon Prentis (SPCK, £9.99) Myles na Gopaleen, in one of his contrary moods, used to wonder about whether the great Augustine was in life a black African (though he used words to that effect that cannot now be used). The saint was certainly born…
Christus Vivit / Christ is Alive, Apostolic Exhortation to Young people and to the Entire people of God by Pope Francis (Veritas, €4.99 / £4.31) The text of the post-synodal apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis, written in response to the Fifteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, on young people, faith, and vocational discernment,…
Mainly About Books by the books editor The fire which ravaged Notre-Dame in Paris shook not just France, but the whole word. The edifice was not merely just another site on the European tourist trail, it was a place which has rightly been seen as a mirror of the soul of France herself. Its…
Prayerful Ireland by Helena Connolly (Messenger Publications, €19.95) This richly illustrated book (mentioned briefly at Christmas time) is worth a longer notice, for as the summer days draw out (hopefully) the places she mentions may well be worth a visit. Her approach is suggested by the cover itself which shows an unusual view of Lough Derg,…
The River Liffey: History and Heritage by Christopher Moriarty (Collins Press, €21.99) Dubliners seem to take the Liffey much for granted. It has been flowing, Christopher Moriarty tell us in this very detailed account of the river and its course, for some ten millennia. It seems to have failed only once. In 1452, the old annals…