Agents of Treachery: Spy Stories
Edited by Otto Penzler Corvus Books,
£8.99;E-book: €8.26
Review: Billy O’Callaghan
Blue Remembered Earth
Alastair Reynolds Gollancz;
£18.99; Kindle £9.99
Review: Val Nolan
I Can Make You Smarter
Paul McKennaBantam,
€11.99
Review: Hannah Stephenson
Bear’s Very Snowy Day by Victoria Ball (€7.10 HB) is a glittery rhyming tale of Bear’s adventure in the snow.
The Inquisition was based on certainty and Cullen Murphy argues that an equally aggressive certainty exists today. TP O’Mahony wonders if he’s right
The Oath is Dead and Gone
Taking Sides by Brian Gallagher (O’Brien Press; €7.99) is a very apt title as the story is set in the early twenties when the newly independent Ireland rushed headlong into a bloody and divisive civil war.
Class played a major role in Munster rugby in Munster. A new book sheds light on this and other fascinating developments, writes John Breen
Between Shades of Gray
Ruta Sepetys Penguin,
£6.99; Kindle £4.99
Review: Andrew Melsom
From Galway’s hookers and currachs, to the construction of traditional boats, Tommy Barker checks out two books that delve into their history
Just Like My Daddy by Sharon Harmer (Caterpillar; €5.92 HB) is a sturdy, comfortable-sized boardbook.
Me Before You
JoJo Moyes
Penguin,
€5.99;Kindle, €5.98
Review: Sue Leonard
The Locked Ward: The Memoir Of A Psychiatric Orderly
Dennis O’Donnell
Jonathan Cape,
£16.99, Kindle £11.39
Review: Natalie Bowen
Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover
Anthony Summers
Ebury Press; €10.99
Interview: Richard Fitzpatrick
WITH her gravelly Essex twang and no-nonsense attitude, Martina Cole sounds just like a character in one of her books.
ANTHONY GIDDENS’ The Politics of Climate Change is about “nightmares, catastrophes and dreams”.
Ben wrote short stories as a child. At university, he knew he wanted to be a writer.
THIS gripping book about history’s most famous maritime disaster focuses mainly on the ship’s passengers and officers, and less on the tragedy.
DESCRIBED as “the first major biography in 35 years of the greatest British artist of the late 19th century” this handsome volume is far more than that, and provides a wide-ranging introduction not only to late 19th century art in Britain but also to key figures in the Arts and Crafts movement such as William Morris.
LITLE NELLIE’S BIG BOOK, by Pippa Goodheart, illustrated by Andy Rowland, (Bloomsbury, €7.10).
BORN in America, Grene spent his childhood on a farm in County Wicklow.
Falling Sideways
Thomas E Kennedy
Bloomsbury, £20.00, eBook €21.18
Review: Kate Whiting
Seán Lemass: Democratic Dictator
Bryce Evans
Collins Press
Review: Karen Funnell
The Pursued
CS Forester
Penguin,
£14.99; Kindle, £8.99
Review: Val Nolan
Arlene Hunt has taken a risk by setting up a publishing company to launch The Chosen, but believes it’s the right decision, Declan Burke reports
Paper Promises: Money Debt and the new World Order
Philip Coggan Penguin Books,
€13.99; Kindle, £11.99
Review: Andrew Melsom
HIPPO In The House by Lisa Regan, illustrated by Kelly Byrne (Bloomsbury; €5.92) is one of the Wild Things series, which introduce the very young to zoo animals.
The Golden Mean
Annabel Lyon
Atlantic Books;
£14.99
Review: Val Nolan
Jennifer Johnston was anything but confident when writing her new novel she tells Caroline O’Doherty , despite having firm views on its subject matter
The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age
Nathan Wolfe
Allen Lane,
€17.55; no Kindle
Review: Dan MacCarthy
WITH Lots of Love at Bedtime is a collection of stories by well-known authors and illustrators (Little Tiger €15,40 HB).
Death comes to Pemberly
PD JamesFaber,
£18.99; Kindle, £6.64
Review: Mary Leland
Charles Dickens: A Life
Claire Tomalin
Viking, an imprint of Penguin,
€39.60, ebook: €14.99
Interview: Richard Fitzpatrick
Engage: The Rise and Fall of Matt Hampson.
Paul Kimmage
€19.99 (Simon & Schuster)
Michael Fewer’s Ireland: People, Places, Walking and Wildlife
Michael Fewer
Ashfield Press;
€25
Rorke Bryan has produced a wonderful book, says Tim Severin , about the ships that brought explorers — and tourists — to the ends of the earth
Purgatory
Tomás Eloy Martinez (translated by Frank Wynne)
Bloomsbury,
£16.99; Kindle: £7.05 (UK)/$11.74 (Europe/USA)
Snow Friends by M Christina Butler and Tina Macnaughton (Little Tiger; €9.50).
Deceit and Self-deception
Robert Trivers
Allen Lane,
€28.50;ebook €15.30
Nikolaus Pevsner The Life
Susie HarriesRandom House,
£30; Kindle £14.31
Bear’s Very Snowy Day by Victoria Ball (Caterpillar; €7.10) is a cushioned-cover, tactile book for toddlers.
Perfect People
Peter James
Macmillan,
£18.99; Kindle £4.39
On Ugliness
Umberto Eco
Maclehose Press
€23.40
Blue Nights
Joan Didion
4th Estate,
£14.99; Kindle: $11.74 (Europe/USA)
What It Means To Be Human, Joanna Bourke
Virago,
£28.50; ebook €£14.45
Review: Terry Prone
Brian O’Connor
THE author of two non-fiction books, Brian has been fascinated by the world of racing since he was a child, when he watched it on TV.
THE Very Noisy Jungle by Kathryn White and Gill Guile (Little Tiger; €9.50 HB)
Sue Leonard talks to Pulitzer prizewinner Jeffrey Eugenides, about his latest novel, The Marriage Plot, a romantic triangle among three college students
Many people see Richard Dawkins as an angry, arrogant atheist. But his area of expertise is evolutionary biology, not religion, JP O’Malley discovers
Accabadora, Michela Murgia (translated by Silvester Mazzarella)
MacLehose Press
£12.00; (€14) E-book, £6.27
Martin Amis: The Biography, Richard Bradford
Constable
€22.00; ebook, €14.99
FOLLOWING the release of the film, Random House have followed up with Tintin, The Sticker Book (€4.50), for ages 4-6, which will amuse and create a new generation of fans.
I Was A Boy in Belsen, Tomi Reichental
O’Brien Press
€15
The Drop
Michael Connelly
Orion Books, £18.99 Kindle £9.99
KJERSTI studied mathematics, and became a computer engineer. Then she became ill, and moved home to recover. Lying in bed, she started to write about an old woman on post-it notes. Then she turned the notes into a novel.
Reamde
Neal Stephenson
Atlantic; £18.99
The Decision
Penny Vincenzi, Headline Review, €15.99; Kindle, €14.37
GOOD Little Wolf by Nadia Shireen (Random House; €7.10) tells of good overcoming bad — maybe! Little grey Rolf loves Mrs Biggins.
Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny
Nile Rodgers, Little Brown, €18.45
The Impossible Dead
Ian Rankin, Orion Books, £13.99; Kindle: $16.97 (Europe/USA)
The Fear Index
Robert Harris, Hutchinson, £18.99; Kindle, £4.39
Leningrad: Tragedy of a City under Siege, 1941-44
Anna Reid, Bloomsbury, £25
Ed King
David Guterson, Bloomsbury, £12.99; Kindle, £7.40
Review: Liam Heylin
Nine Inches
Colin Bateman, Headline, €9.99; Kindle £7.99
The Affair
Lee Child, Bantam Press, €11.99; Kindle, £5.59
George Mackay Brown: The Wound and the Gift
Ron Ferguson Preface by Richard Holloway
Saint Andrew Press, £19.99
ON Your Farts, Get Set, Go! by Mitchell Symons (Doubleday; €9.50) is the latest in this popular series — a light-hearted look at sport.
Wolves in Ireland, A natural and cultural history
Kieran Hickey, Open Air, an imprint of the Four Courts Press and grant-aided by The Heritage Council, €26.95
George Harrison Living In The Material World
Olivia HarrisonAbrams & Chronicle Books, £26.99
Review: Laura Wurzal
Speech Lessons
John Montague Gallery Press, €11.95
The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club
Lauren Liebenberg, Virago, £11.99; Kindle, £8.49
The Cut
George Pelecanos, Orion Books, €14.99; e-book: €8.49
George Pelecanos has written a novel a year for the past 20 years, but after a stint on TV show The Wire his star has risen, discovers Richard Fitzpatrick.
Landfalls
Tim Mackintosh-Smith, John Murray, €13.20; Kindle €£6.39
Dick Cheney played a pivotal role in the war on terror, and the US, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan paid a high price, writes TP O’Mahony.
The Lady Of The Rivers
Philippa Gregory Simon & Schuster, €25.10; Kindle, £11.49
That Used To Be Us
Thomas L Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum Little, Brown, €27.50, ebook €11.99
Everything Beautiful Began After
Simon Van Booy Beautiful books, £15.99; Kindle, $7.16
BIG BOOK Of My World illustrated by Kali Stileman (Doubleday; €11.93 HB) is the definitive book for toddlers at the discovery stage. It begins with shapes, colours and basic counting, progressing to sounds (and what makes them), town-scapes and the sea, graduating to games and challenging puzzles such as spot-the- difference and odd-one-out.
Val McDermid’s perspective as a woman is key to her ability to write crime fiction, but the genre is more than it seems, she tells Declan Burke.
Elizabeth Bowen’s Selected Irish Writings. Edited by Eibhear Walshe, Cork University Press, €39.
How to Leave Twitter. Grace Dent. faber and faber, €10.55; Kindle £3.79
“My earliest memory was of my mother reading Roald Dahl to us in bed. I later read a lot of Enid Blighton. I took a break from reading in my teens, but rediscovered it in my late twenties.
The Hound of Gabriel & the Jaguar. Finbarr Corkery. Ragworth Press
Dilly Duckling by Claire Freedman, illustrated by Jane Chapman (Little Tiger; €5.92 HB) is the simple tale of a ditsy duckling who wanders from the rest of the brood to catch her downy feather, which has been caught by the wind.
Three Famines. Starvation and Politics
Thomas Keneally, Public Affairs, 2011, £25.00
More Lives than One: The Remarkable Wilde Family through the Generations
Gerard Hanberry, Collins Press; €19.99
Ten Little Babies by Rose Impey, illustrated by Nicola Smee (Bloomsbury; €7.10) embraces all the elements that please the very young.
Moral Combat: A History of World War II
Michael Burleigh, Harper Press, £10.99, ebook: €16.94 (under: Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II)
Antwerp
Roberto Bolano (translated from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer), Picador, £12; no ebook
The Burning Soul
John Connolly
Hodder & Stoughton, €13.99, Kindle, £8.99.
SPLISH, Splash, Splat by Rob Scotton (HarperCollins; €8.35) is another feast of fun from this brilliant artist/writer.
Padraig Carmody
Polity, €18.20, no kindle
Faber and Faber, £20. Kindle £9.36
Andy Kershaw: No Off Switch
An autobiography
Profile Books €25.00, Kindle £9.02
The Cold Eye of Heaven
Christine Dwyer Hickey
Atlantic Books, €13.99; Kindle, €7.36
The Sixth Man
David Baldacci
Macmillan
£12.99, Kindle $11.34
Smart Swarm
Peter Miller
Avery £12.99; Kindle £2.99
The Damnation Of John Donellan: A Mysterious Case Of Death & Scandal In Georgian England
Elizabeth Cooke
Profile Books, £14.99, Kindle £7.12
The Beautiful And The Damned: Life In The New India
Siddhartha Deb
Viking, £14.99, no ebook
The Milkman In The Night
Andrey Kurkov
Harvill Secker, £12.99; Kindle, £8.39
As Though She Were Sleeping
Elias Khoury Maclehose Press; £18.99, Kindle £11.72
Waterline
Ross Raisin
Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books, €14.99
When Betsy came to Babysit by Elizabeth Dale, illustrated by Zoe Waring.
Roddy Doyle is best-known for his gritty, urban writing style, but how would this style translate to a children’s book? Billy O’Callaghan finds out.
The Cat’s Table: A Novel. Michael OndaatjeJonathan Cape, £16.99. Kindel $3.22
All The Devils Are Here The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis. Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, Portfolio Penguin paperback €£10.99; Kindle £4.99
Vanessa was raised in Chico, California, in a hippy community. After College she worked with homeless and foster children and loved it.
STAR Friends by Tracey Corderoy, illustrated by Alison Edgson (Little tiger; €7.10) will surely capture the interest of imaginative youngsters.
Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero. Grant Morrison Jonathan Cape; £17.99
You Deserve Nothing. Alexander Maksik John Murray, £14.99, Kindle £6.99
From heroes to hypocrites, the 19th century explorers of the river Nile left a lasting legacy according to a wonderful new book, writes, Tim Severin.
Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals, edited by Niall Ferguson. Penguin Books, £12.99.
The Foxes Come at Night, Cees Nooteboom. Maclehose Press, £12.
TERRY DEARY’S Pirate Tales series scores high again on the laughter scale with his latest book The Pirate Queen (A&C Black; €5.92), featuring our own feisty Grace O’Malley.
Jaycee’s living hell - A Stolen Life, Jaycee Dugard. Simon and Schuster €13.99, eBook: not available.
Paula used to live in Africa. After university, she taught for five years. Then she worked in the area of human rights in South Africa.
Frank Duff: A Life Story Finola Kennedy Continuum, £14.99
Roger Crowley Faber and Faber £20, Kindle £9.00
Robert Redford: The Biography Michael Feeney Callan Simon & Schuster £13.99, Kindle $20.00
A Journey With Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet Eavan Boland Carcanet Press, £16.95
The Track of Sand Andrea Camilleri (translated by Stephen Sartarelli) Mantle, £14.99
LUCKY Little Mouse! by AH Benjamin (Little Tiger; €5.92 HB) follows a Mouse as he makes his way homeward unaware of the hidden, lip-smacking, hungry predators that lie in wait.
Now All Roads Lead To France: The last years of Edward Thomas
Matthew Hollis
Faber and Faber, £20; E-Book £14.99
Helen has always liked the idea of writing, but nothing ever seemed to work. She studied journalism, and freelanced for a couple of years, before moving on to radio. She worked in Cork for a long time, on 96fm, and C103.
Shooting Angels
Christopher Hope
Atlantic Books, €14.95.
Belinda McKeon tells Sue Leonard how she realised she was getting free master-classes on how to be a novelist by interviewing writers for her work.
Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind
Brian Fagan
Bloomsbury, £20; Kindle £10.26
ELIXIR is a thorough — occasionally over-thorough — examination of 5,000 years of history, from the beginnings of civilisation in ancient Mesopotamia (now Iraq), to the clever feat that sent the Owens River’s flow to a tiny Californian town called Los Angeles at the start of the 20th century, to the global water shortages of today.
Lady Gregory: An Irish Life
Judith Hill
Collins Press, €14.99
SOME idea of the personality of Lady Augusta Gregory may be gleaned from her reply to a death threat from a tenant in 1922: she would be at her desk, she told him, by an uncurtained window every evening, an easy target.
I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59
Douglas Edwards
Allen Lane, €22.80; Kindle, €10.30
ANARCHIC is the wrong word to describe the early days of Google; it’s fairer to say that the founders’ vision of better search for all — or “organising the world’s information” in the words of their mission statement — was achieved by tight focus on user experience, experimentation and smart people. And a lot of technical wizardry.
My Stolen City: A Collection of Poems
George Harding
Revival Press; €12
IN CORK some time ago there was, as a former taoiseach might observe, a “confluence” of events.
HOP, Skip and Jump! By Lia Foa and Katie Saunders (Caterpillar Books; €7.10) is a clever mix of bouncy rhymes and busy activities.
Booker prize nominee Sebastian Barry tells Caroline O’Doherty how grateful he is that the protagonist told her story and guided him as he wrote it down.
James Mylet began to write when he was 21. Before that he had no interest in reading, or in writing.
Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations. Terri Hooley and Richard Sullivan, Blackstaff Press; £14.99.
Twice Born. Margaret MazzantiniOneworld Publications, £12.99; Kindel, $11.74.
Kamchatka. Marcelo Figueras, Atlantic Books; €10.21
A History of the World in 100 Weapons. Chris McNabOsprey, €28; EBook: unavailable.
The Soviet Army endured terrible suffering — losing eight million soldiers — in its defeat of Nazi Germany, writes Geoffrey Roberts.
© Examiner Publications (Cork) Limited, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 73385.
