Teenagers Translated: How to Raise Happy Teens by Nancy and Naella Grew (Vermillion, €15.00 / £11.99)

Surplus People: from Wicklow to Canada by Jim Rees (Collins Press, €12.99 / £11.99)

Meeting God: Carmelite Reflections and Prayers ed. by the Irish Carmelites (Columba Press, €16.99 hb / £12.50 hb)

Christopher Moriarty The North Bull Island is one of the most remarkable and most treasured of all the landforms in Dublin Bay. That is quite an achievement because the bay contains in a small space a truly amazing abundance and variety of natural and man-made habitats which serve both wild plants and animals and not…

This is an amusing jeux d'esprit from The Irish Catholic film critic Aubrey Malone. This anthology of ripe quotes of the joys of food is a feast of fun for those who are not over enamoured of diets of any kind.  Not a book for Weight Watchers, this tasty collection of bonnes bouches will delight…

Stefan Kornelius devotes much of this lively, detailed biography to Angela Merkel’s life in East Germany, the former German Domocratic Republic (established in the Russian zone after the war), exploring the influence that reviled but often poorly understood place had on her career, her personality, and her political outlook. State socialism, German-style, was repressive and…

It will be a familiar Sunday scene to many: the parents at Mass praying and participating, their children restless, bored and uninvolved in the service they attend. The congregation will be mostly older parishioners and couples with children. There will be few teenagers and almost no young adults. This indifference, this lack of interest will…

Mary Litton Here is a book which anyone interested in flowers and plants will enjoy and learn from. But it is a large scholarly work, and though written in an attractive and lively style, it still runs to nearly 800 pages and its price is commensurately high. Peter Wyse Jackson was formerly the director of…

One of the great benefits of modern printing technology is that it allows ordinary citizens to put out their own books in a way that was not really possible before. They may even manage to get some readers. Author Dermot Layden is ensuring this in his own case by sending a copy to everyone in…

This book is aimed at the business community, but other readers may feel they might profit from it. The author suggests there are three simple rules governing thinking: eliminate information overload, transform negative thinking into postive action, and think clearly in the moment. Yet these rules, clear as they are, run counter those which apply…