Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard by Cynthia L. Haven (Studies in Violence, Mimesis and Culture series / Michigan State University Press, US$29.95 pb) Frank
 Litton   René Girard, who died in 2015, was one of the leading thinkers of our era – a provocative sage who bypassed prevailing orthodoxies to offer a bold, sweeping vision of…

Discovering the Boyne Valley by Noel French (Mercier Press., €14.99) Christopher 
Moriarty   A small river, in quite a small country, yet a portion of the Boyne Valley contains an amazing wealth of solid remnants which incorporate a huge spectrum of human civilisation. A day trip can include them all and a good guidebook can outline the…

The Notebook Fr Bernard Healy   Recently Bishop Ray Browne of Kerry launched a book that was banned by one of his predecessors. The book – Fr. Ferris’s Parish Histories: BallymacElligott, Ballyseedy, O’Brennan and Nohoval – was ready for printing in 1932, but Bishop Michael O’Brien put a stop to its publication. The eponymous Fr…

Christina Rossetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith by Emma Mason (Oxford University Press, €30.00; available also as an ebook) John 
F.
 Deane   The ever popular Christmas carol In the Bleak Mid-Winter was written by Christina Rossetti but holds its fame more from the musical setting by Gustav Holst than by the strength of the poem. Rossetti wrote a great…

The Faith Journey of the Déise People by Michael G. Olden (Diocese of Waterford & Lismore, €40.00 + €11.00 p&p; available from The Book Centre, 25 John Roberts Square, 
Waterford, tel: 051-873823, website@thebookcentre.ie) In the introduction to his new book Msgr Olden states that his aim is to provide a history of the diocese of Waterford…

Am I a Feminist? Are You? by Mary Kenny (New Island Books, €13.95) Those who can recall earlier manifestations of Mary Kenny might be daunted by a title so redolent of the #metoo generation and the fierce quarrels of the present day gender wars. But the present-day Mary is a person of great experience as well…

Brendan O’Regan: Irish Innovator, Visionary and Peacemaker by Brian O’Connell with Cian O’Carroll (Irish Academic Press, €34.99) Joe
 Carroll   In the awful depression of the 1950s and early 1960s, Brendan O’Regan was a household name for his pioneering, job-creating work at Shannon Airport. What was happening at Shannon with its industrial zone, new town, duty-free shop,…

World of Books   Some days I stand in front of the magazine racks in Easons and wonder if the great era of the general magazine is now over. Are they, so to speak, now dead in the water, killed off by television and the internet? Certainly they are not what they once were. The…

Saints for the Family by John Murray (Messenger Publications, €9.95) Inspiration from the Saints: Stories from the Lives of Catholic Holy Men and Women by Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh (Angelico Press, £12.50 / US$16.95)   Fr John Murray is the busy parish priest of Downpatrick in Ulster. His name may well be familiar to readers both from his…

A Gospel of Hope by Walter Brueggemann (Hodder and Stoughton, £12.99) As we get ready to mark the end of the First World War, the Great War as it was then called, and the war to supposedly save civilisation, many will be recalling that the treaty that concluded that appalling conflict was the source, within a…