Looking back over the year, our regular reviewers have selected what, for them, was their personal book, or in some generous cases, books of the year Anthony Redmond A book that impressed me quite a lot this year was Unmasking God by Father Daniel O’Leary (Columba Press, €12.99 / £11.08), whose books are always a…

Rome: pagan days to papal centuries The Popes: A History By John Julius Norwich (Chatto & Windus, €33 / £25.00) Rome: A CulturalHistory By Robert Hughes (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, €33.00 / £25.00) Michael Collins The leading art critic, Robert Hughes, familiar to many for his history of his native Australia, has distilled his life-long passion…

Sending letters of love from Zambia   Wexford’s Fr Fritz O’Kelly tells of life on the African Missions in a collection of letters now published in book form Dear friends, A word of encouragement from Helmut Kathower prompts me to attempt to write a newsletter to my friends this Christmas. He was a young German…

Christmas books for all tastes   As always at this time of year we publish a selection of books suitable for all ages at Christmas Compiled by the Books’ Editor   Keeping Christmas Well By Artemsia D’Ecca (Phaeton Publishing, €29.00 / £25.00) This is an amusing and seasonal book from a newish Irish publishing house…

  Just a century ago, the firm of Karl Baedeker in Leipzig issued a new edition of their guide to Palestine and Syria. I have been looking through this stout, but easily handled little volume of over 400 pages, bound in bright red cloth, hoping to catch glimpses of the Holy Land as it was…