One Wide Expanse by Michael Longley  (UCD Press, €20 / £17)  These writings from the Ireland Chair of Poetry, which Ulster poet Michael Longley held between 2007 and 2010, consists of three essays. They are derived from the annual lectures which he was required to give, aside from his teaching, and deal with different aspects…

When Silence Speaks. The Spiritual Way of the Carthusian Order by Tim Peeters (Darton, Longman and Todd, £12.99)

Family and Civilization by Carle Zimmerman ed. and abridged by James Kurth (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, € 9.91).

The Books Editor How often do you over hear someone, in a book shop or over a stall at a parish fete, as often as not women, for women are greater readers than men, saying: “Oh, I have read that… I think”.  Back the book goes on the shelf or the jumble sale stall.  With…

Constantine The Emperor by David Potter (Oxford University Press, £14.99 pb)

Simplify: Ten Practices to Unclutter your Soul by Bill Hybels  (Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99) The author is an American minister, but what he recommends in this little book has universal application. Though couched in the language of modern self-help, at the heart of what he puts forward is a recognition of the importance of making…

Jackson Voices on Joyce Edited by Anne Fogarty & Fran O’Rourke (UCD Press €50.00 hb)

The Dark Night of the Shed by Nick Page  (Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99)  Many of us have the wrong dreams, Nick Pages suggests. We don’t need a new Porsche, we need a new purpose. His book is an attempt to come to terms with what our friends the psychologists call the “mid-life crisis”. That sense of…

The Irish Times: 150 Years of Influence by Terence Brown (Bloomsbury Continuum, £25.00)

Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa: Unrepentant Fenian by Shane Kenna (Merrion Press, €21.99)