Brian Friel: Beginnings, by Kelly Matthews (Four Courts Press, €29.95 / €24.95) A problem with many modern literary biographies is that their authors hurry over the subject’s earliest years in their haste to get to the years of success and fame, as if failure and obscurity were not a possibility. By contrast this book especially…
A different kind of power: a memoir, by Jacinda Ardern (Macmillan, £25 / €19.99) Jacinda Ardern was aged 37 when she became the fortieth prime minister of New Zealand in 2017, the youngest person to hold that office since 1856. She was the third woman to fill the role. This memoir traces her humble…
Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, by Bill Bryson (Penguin Random House, €15.40 / £9.99) Anthony Gaughan Bill Bryson is an American humourist. Like other comedians he portrays himself as woebegone, put upon and the butt of those who work in bars, restaurants and hotels. His style is breezy and entertaining. Bill writes travel…
Dublin’s Stained Glass: A guide to the finest twentieth-century windows, by David Caron (Four Fours Press, €29.95 / £24.95) This is a book which will give delight as well as insight to those who enjoy nothing more than exploring our great tradition of stained glass, largely created since the beginning of the 20th century.…
England’s Thousand Best Churches, by Simon Jenkins, with photographs from the Country Life archive (Allen Lane, £50.00; also available in paperback) This is not strictly a new book, but it is one which is very relevant to an important discussion for today: what is the future of our churches here in Ireland? Some readers will like…
Shadows + Reflections: The Irish National War Memorial Gardens at Island Bridge, by Annie Dibble and Angela Rolfe (Gandon Editions, €25.00 / £22.00) When my wife and I were small our respective fathers were only too happy to take their families down rural side roads to inspect a monument or two. However, the Irish…
Dublin’s Industrial Heritage: From Sandymount to Crumlin Road, by Rob Goodbody (Wordwell in association with Dublin City Council, supported by the Heritage Council, €17.99) The Victorian novelist George Moore, himself a landed gentleman from Mayo, deprecated Dublin as an industrial city. Aside from a few streets and the nice houses of his artistic friends, the…
Granny Bridget’s Fairy Tales, by Felicity Dempsey (Atlantic Papers Press, €14.89; contact info@atlanticpaperspress.com) Here is a children’s book which will be welcomed by many parents. As many parents and grandparents are well aware it is difficult to wean young people away from the mass-produced pabulum which fills the internet at all hours. Felicity Dempsey is…
Diplomats in Dublin by Kees van Hoek (The Talbot Press, December 1943) Recently a relative in New York sent me a slightly battered copy of this book, which is not only of great immediate interest as evidence of just how much Ireland has changed since the “Emergency”, but suggests as well a topic for…
Mystical Crooner: The Lives of Leonard Cohen, by Aubrey Malone (Wisdom Twins Books / Lulu.com, £15.99) This book by our film critic provides an engaging overview of the complicated career of the Canadian poet, novelist and singer, “a charismatic Jew from Montreal’s French Quarter”. These contending identities provide much of the tension of…
Peter Costello