The Book of Common Prayer: a Biography, by Alan Jacobs (Princeton University Press, €22.00 / £17.95)

Tom Gilmartin: The man who brought down a Taoiseach and exposed the greed and corruption at the heart of Irish politics, by Frank Connolly (Gill & Macmillan, €16.99 / £14.99)

Aimed an teenage readers weaned on video games and television, this is a spy novel for younger teenagers which moves from a conventional Dublin day school into the world of international espionage in which a group are given placements in The Planet Earthy Academy, which aims at training future protectors of the planet. Their first…

It ought to be said straight off that this is an excellent little book, which should prove to be both enlightening and heartening to those who read it. Donagh O’Shea OP is the director of the Dominican Retreat House in Tallaght. He the author of other books, such as Take Nothng for the Journey and…

This book consists of more prayer group messages from Ivam, Marijana, Marija, Jelena and Fr Slavko. The background and the personalities will be familiar to most people; especially the many thousands go to the shrine every year. This book continues the familiar themes, and will be welcomed by all those for whom the reports have…

Tony Farmar In real life Michael Smurfit often appears a shy, tense, hair-trigger kind of man. Not that you would know it from this bland production, which has climbed to the top spot of Irish best sellers. With the help of a couple of ghost-writers he has produced a chronicle of his life from his…