A last look round the Binchy estate so to speak in this set of tales concerning the varied residents of Chestnut Street, which readers of Minding Frankie will recall is just around the corner from St Jarlath’s Crescent. These are warm and entertaining tales of the kind of suburban life which was very much Maeve…

This is an interesting exploration of the state of Eastern Europe since the fall of communism, in many ways it echoes the atmosphere of a 1930s novel, but yet is right up to date in the attitudes to society and politics and money. This is a world which the author, a former journalist turned industrialist,…

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…

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

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…