Christmas in the Cross Hairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World’s Most Celebrated Holiday by Chris Bowler (Oxford University Press, £20.00) In this first week of the New Year it may seem a little late to be reviewing a book about the history of the holiday that we have just got safely…
Category: Books
The progress of a man who wanted change
J. Anthony Gaughan Walter Carpenter: A Revolutionary Life by Ellen Galvin RSC (East Wall History Group, €5, or a donation to Cycle for Suicide charity; contact East Wall History Group at eastwallhistory@gmail.com) This little biography of Walter Carpenter is an authentic expression of Pietas. Written by a granddaughter, a retired nun based in Dublin, it…
The flight into Egypt History, legend and parable
Christmas is now generally a time of universal celebration and festivity. But the days after the Nativity were different: after the joy of the new child came cruelty and persecution. As always the Bible is pervaded by a sense of the reality of human affairs that people, swept away by sentiment, so often overlook: cruel…
2016 books of the year
In these pages some of our regular reviewers provide a brief appreciation of their best most interesting books of the year, a selection of very varied reading which others will also enjoy.
Recent books in brief
Where I Find God: Personal Reflections from some of Ireland’s Finest Thinkers edited by Cora Guinnane & Joanne O’Brien, with a foreword by Mary McAleese (Columba Press, €24.99) Some 53 contributors, drawn from many fields of life share in a few brief but intense paragraphs their experiences of the mystical as they personally encounter it.…
Christmas books for young adults and children
Christmas time is one of the great books buying season of the year. For children and young adults especially the shops are filled with a bonanza of books, of all kinds for all kinds of taste. While it is said that girls take more easily to reading, they often prefer story books about girls,…
Books of special interest to get through the festive time
At this time of the year the bookshops are filled with books of all kinds, a great many simply produced for immediate seasonal sale, with little hope that they will be of any lasting value to anyone in the months, let alone the years to come. However, among these daunting piles of printed paper for…
In the heart of rural Cork
“Ancient Sweet Donoughmore”: Life in an Irish rural parish to 1900 by Gerard O’Rourke (Redmond Grove Publications, €35.00 including p+p)
A book that spans the ages
A True Symbol of the City of Dublin – The Ha’penny Bridge Dublin by Michael English and others (Dublin City Council, €24.95pb / €34.95hb)
What we really gain from life
It is As it Is: a True Story of Hope Loss and Friendship by Malina Stahre-Godycka (Veritas, €14.99)