The Great Explosion: Gunpowder, the Great War, and a disaster on the Kent marshes by Brian Dillon (Penguin Books, £18.99)

The World of Books

During the long colonial occupation, Irish people learnt to be wary of rules and laws. They considered these to be means of continuing their subjugation, and saw them as incompatible with the betterment and advancement of their family, friends and community. In a compelling book sociologist Niamh Hourigan (who is senior lecturer at the School of Sociology and…

Walking the Camino along the north shore of Spain to Santiago de Compostela has become perhaps the most active pilgrim route in the world. All kinds of people undertake the excursion, not all of them Christians by any means. This very personal book is an account of one such by a Catholic woman from Wexford,…

With the death of Günter Grass, the author of The Tin Drum, an epoch of German literature comes to a close. Born in the Free City of Danzig, in what is now a symbolic part of Poland, Grass was reared a Catholic. Though he ceased in adulthood to be a church-goer, his upbringing marked all…

The recent attacks on young men with intellectual disabilities in Cork and in Dublin, have received great deal of media attention, and rightly so. But the true nature of what “learning disabilities means” often escapes them. Ruth Chipperfield will enlighten them. This is truly the story of an exceptional man, her brother Gordon Cochran, exceptional…

Give Dust a Tongue: A Faith & Poetry Memoir by John F. Deane (The Columba Press, €19.99)

Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity by Anthony Esolen (Saint Benedict Press, US$ 14.95; www.SaintBenedictPress.com )

Dying for the Cause: Kerry’s Republican Dead by Tim Horgan (Mercier Press, €35.00)

World of books by the books editor