Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright (William Collins, £14.99) Peter Hegarty Albright’s striking title emphasises her concern about the rise of strongmen around the world: ‘Some may view this book and its title as alarmist. Good. We should be awake to the assault on democratic values that has gathered strength in many countries abroad and that is dividing…
The Preacher and the Prelate: The Achill Mission Colony and the Battle for Souls in Famine Ireland by Patricia Byrne (Merrion Press, €14.99) It is strange how the same place can have different effects on different people and at different times. We recently reviewed a book on Achill Island as it appears today to a poet…
The World of Books by the Books Editor The Piri Re’is is an early 16th Century Ottoman map, which has attracted a great deal of interest, of all kinds, since it was rediscovered in Istanbul’s Topkapi Museum in 1929. Named for the admiral who had it made, it shows the coasts of the Atlantic and…
Heroism and Genius: How Catholic Priests Helped to Build – And Can Help Rebuild – Western Civilization William J. Slattery (Ignatius Press, $24.95 / £18.82). In this ambitious book the author records the significant contribution made by priests to the arts, literature, philosophy and the sciences. He ranges across the centuries. Among those he lists are…
On the Summits of the Highest Love by Enzo Farinella (Edizioni Grafiser, €15.00) Through Mountains and Valleys by Enzo Farinella (Edizioni Grafiser, €15.00) Joe Carroll The author is a former cultural attaché at the Italian embassy in Dublin, who has settled in Ireland as a journalist and RAI correspondent, and has made it his mission in life to…
Bean Counters: The Triumph of the Accountants and How They Broke Capitalism by Richard Brooks (Atlantic, £18.99) Peter Hegarty Brooks’ theme is “the demise of sound accounting”. Slipshod work by the ‘Big Four’ companies that dominate the profession – PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and KPMG – have brought it into disrepute. The author, an investigative journalist…
Life in the Church of Ireland 1600-1800 by Robert Wyse Jackson (Ballinakella Press, €17.50) Robert Marshall Published initially in 1941 under the title Scenes from Irish Clerical Life in the 17th and 18th Centuries, this book was written by a clergyman of the Church of Ireland who had read law at Trinity College Dublin and been called…
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier (Bodley Head, £9.99) Peter Hegarty Author Lanier is a disenchanted idealist, a digital pioneer who once believed that technology would improve our lives. He now associates social media with “nastiness”. People come together in a setting “in which the main – or often the…
Smile of Joy: Mary of Nazareth by Thomas Casey SJ (Messenger Publications, €7.95) Fr Casey is currently Dean of Philosophy at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. But this book is a very personal and very human one. Using some of the familiar incidents in the Gospels that feature Mary of Nazareth he hopes he says to ‘reintroduce’…
The World of Books by the Books Editor Back in 2013, the Bishop of Northampton Dr Peter Doyle appointed Canon John Udris to inquire into the suitability of Gilbert Keith Chesterton for canonisation. Canon Udris’s report will be given to the bishop later this month. He has been quoted in the press as saying…
Peter Costello