Spuds and the Spider by Séamus Ó Conaill (Gill Books, €8.99) The President’s Glasses by Peter Donnelly (Gill Books, €9.99) Margaret
 Gleason   Spuds Potsofgold lives an idyllic life with his wife Rose Goodytwoshoes in the cosy surroundings of Toadstool Cottage, except for one nuisance – an eight-legged, hairy and googly-eyed spider called Leggers McWeb, who is in…

Impeachment: a citizen’s guide by Cass R. Sunstein (Harvard University Press, €7) Felix
 M.
 Larkin   With speculation rife about the possibility of impeaching President Trump, this little book is indeed timely. In it, Prof. Sunstein outlines what he calls “the majesty and the mystery of impeachment in the US Constitution” – and he dispels much misunderstanding of…

World of Books by the Books Editor   I was struck the other day, while reading Anthony Dent’s book Lost Beasts of Britain, by a remark in his preface. He is explaining that he deals largely with the extent of Britain known to the “good emperor” Antoninus Pius, builder of the Antonine Wall in 142 AD,…

Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think by Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle (Oxford University Press, £19.99) Christopher 
Moriarty   Scientists are subversive. Good scientists are supposed to question everything within their sphere. Institutional religion on the other hand demands obedience to the authoritative word and forbids questioning. The title of this book, by…

The Adoption Machine by Paul Jude Redmond – foreword by Clare Daly TD – (Merrion Press, €16.99). Finola
 Kennedy   The sub-title of The Adoption Machine is ‘The Dark History of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes and the inside story of how Tuam 800 became a global scandal’. The book also contains the author’s personal history.…

Lincoln and the Irish: The Untold Story of How the Irish Helped Abraham Lincoln Save the Union by Niall O’Dowd (Skyhorse Publishing, €20.67/$24.99) Peter 
Hegarty   Niall O’Dowd  has an original take on the American Civil War: without the 150,000 Irish soldiers who served in the his armies, Lincoln’s Union would have lost. The Irish-American publisher emphasises…

Kerry: The Beautiful Kingdom written and photographed by John Wesson (O’Brien Press, €24.99) John Wesson is an English professional photographer who divides his time between Derbyshire and Valentia Island in Kerry. Though this is his first book I suspect we can expect many more. He has a fine eye for both the beauties of the landscape,…

Faith Finding a Voice by Cardinal Vincent Nichols (Bloomsbury, £12.99) The new book by the Cardinal Archbishop of London will undoubtedly find a wide audience.  How encouraging it is, too, that a senior prelate sees it as part of his mission to devote time to composing such a book. It does not happen everywhere. His hope…

Make My House a House of Prayer: Reflections on the Family Rosary by Gabriel Harty OP (Veritas, €3.99) This little book is by a veteran Dominican priest now in his 90s. Known as ‘the Irish Rosary Priest’, he has passed his vocation establishing prayer groups all over Ireland. The key element of his new publication is…

Maria Edgeworth’s Letters from Ireland selected and edited by Valerie Pakenham (Lilliput Press, €40.00hb, 
€25.00pb) The landed gentry and the great houses of  Ireland have not had a great reputation in general. But many of those for whom the traditional nationalist narrative has long sufficed, might  well have their minds, if not changed, at least refined…