Some of our regular reviewers select the book or books they most enjoy or were impressed by over the course of the last year… Mary Kenny Although it’s a serious and scholarly book, Religion, Landscape & Settlement in Ireland – From Patrick to Present, by Kevin Whelan (Four Courts Press, €45.00), is clear, accessible and…

Our Books Editor Peter Costello makes recommendations for you to place in someone’s Christmas stocking… Hey Grandude by Paul McCartney (Puffin Books, £12.99) This is a fun book which granddads of a certain age will enjoy reading with the grandchildren. It is odd to think of Paul McCartney himself as a grandfather – how times…

Wild Stories from the Irish Uplands by John G. O’Dwyer (Currach Books, €14.99) The author is a veteran hiker with over thirty years experience of leading walking and mountaineering groups through the Irish countryside.  In this collection of essays he visits a number of well-known uplands across the country and recalls their association with historical…

Shooting and Cutting: A survivors guide to film-making and other diseases by Stephen Bradley (Mercier Press, €14.99) Film maker Stephen Bradley is the creator of Noble, the 2014 drama about the true life story of Christina Noble, the children’s rights campaigner and charity worker in Vietnam, who founded the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation. Some years ago Bradley was…

Under Construction: Working with the Architect by Neil O’Boyle (SPCK, £8.99) The literary conceit behind this book is an original one. Author O’Boyle takes the idea of revamping your home, from the garden and front hall up to the bedroom, and gives it a spiritual twist. Most of us will have worked with either a…

Rome: A Pilgrim Guide by Michael Rear, illustrated by Hilary Griffiths (Gracewing, £14.99)   Quite by chance the day before this book arrived on my desk I had been looking into the generally excellent Michelin Green Guide series Guide to Rome. This covers a great deal of ground, but for what I was looking for it was…

The Globalist: Peter Sutherland – his Life and Legacy by John Walsh (HarperCollins, £20.00) Garrett
 Sheehan   This review comes with a caveat: the writer was a classmate and friend of the late Peter Sutherland. That said this is a carefully researched, well organized and superbly written first biography in which the author John Walsh…

The Salamanca Diaries: Father McCabe and the Spanish Civil War by Tim Fanning (Merrion Press, €19.95) Joe Carroll   For over 300 years, Irish priests who trained in Salamanca brought back traces of Spanish culture to parishes the length and breadth of Ireland. There are references in Patrick Kavanagh’s Tarry Flynn to the parish priest…

A Matter of Interpretation by Elizabeth MacDonald (Fairlight Books, £12.99) Elizabeth MacDonald’s absorbing novel is built up around the character of the celebrated Michael Scot – now known to be of Scottish rather than Irish origin – and his relations with the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Hohenstaufen II and various other players in the Middle…

Dipping into Advent: Reflections for Advent & Christmas by Alan Hilliard (Messenger Publications, €9.95) Sacred Space: Advent & Christmas 2019-2020 by The Irish Jesuits (Messenger Publications, €4.95) Candles in the Night: The Advent Experience by Anna Burke (Veritas, €7.99/£7.00) Whatever about family feasting, fun and commercial excess, Christmas for Christians of all traditions around the…