- NEWS
Unions opposed to cuts are subject to law, says KennyTeacher unions and others that remain opposed to €300m public sector pay cut proposals will be subjected to laws cutting higher salaries and other work changes, Enda Kenny said yesterday.
UCC plan will save taxpayers millions University College Cork intends to be largely self-funding within five years, saving the Irish taxpayer millions of euro a year.
- WORLD
Woolwich terror killing: Security services face probeThe British parliament is to investigate if security services could have done more to prevent the murder of a soldier hacked to death in a London street after it emerged that his suspected killers were known to intelligence officers.
Woolwich killing: Further arrests as spotlight turns on security servicesBritish police arrested two more people yesterday in a hunt for accomplices of two British men of Nigerian descent accused of hacking a soldier to death on a London street in revenge for wars in Muslim countries.
- BUSINESS
Noonan examining ways to capitalise banks It is believed the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan told the IMF that he will look to Contingent Convertible Capital (CoCo) Notes if the banks need additional capital buffers following the stress tests.
- SPORT
The magic is in the anticipationULSTER SFC QUARTER-FINAL:Donegal v Tyrone For too long, we've been decrying the anti-climactic starts to thevarious provincial championships. Now we have a genuine no-holds barred contest in Ballybofey.
O’Brien out for final as Schmidt takes issue with Gatland Joe Schmidt has opted against speculating whether Sean O'Brien will miss the opening weeks of the British and Irish Lions tour after omitting the injured flanker from his squad of 23 for today's RaboDirect Pro12 decider.
- LIFESTYLE
A woman of mettle: how Iron Lady rose to powerFirst volume of Margaret Thatcher's authorised biography is predictably flattering, but not a hagiography, says Shaun Connolly
Best of the Week's TV (Saturday, May 25 - Friday 31)Highlights include Colin Stafford Johnson's new series on the Shannon, and highly-rated new spy drama The Americans.
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BOOKS
Following the money to a bloody outcome
Mark O’Sullivan is the latest crime writer to produce an accomplished piece set against the background of the property market implosion. He spoke to Liam Heylin
Boys’ own adventure: the wandering mind of great travel writer Fermor
Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure
Artemis Cooper
John Murray, hb €34.99 / ebook €16.99
If Artemis Cooper’s book was a novel, not a biography, you would not believe the story.
A return to Europe for Brown and a return to form
Inferno
Dan Brown
Transworld, Random House, €14.99, ebook €10.99
It’s been almost four years since Professor Robert Langdon, the renowned Harvard symbologist, last embarked on a mystery.
A freestyle literary feast
The Enigma of Return
Dany Laferriere (translated by David Homel)
MacLehose, £12.99Kindle: £8.51
In 1947, Martiniquan poet and politician Aimé Césaire’s epic surrealist work, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, considered the cultural identity of black Africans in a colonial setting.
Beginner’s Pluck - Miranda Manning
Living the country life, Miranda Manning wasn’t really a reader until her twenties. She worked in HR; in a state body, then a secondary college, and finally in a factory.
The thrill of gothic horror cliches expertly retold
This House is Haunted
John Boyne
Doubleday, £12.99; Kindle, £8.54
The gothic ghost story has etched-in-stone dictates: a first-person narrator, usually from London and emerging from grief, is relocated for work reasons to a rural castle or manor house.
The trouble with Mother
On Helwig Street A memoir
Richard Russo
Vintage, £8.99; Kindle, £6.17
Richard Russo, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his novel Empire Falls, has written an indulgent autobiography about how his life has been disrupted by his relationship with his complicated mother, Jean.
The village idiot who defines home truths to ‘sane society’ around him
The Gamal
Humiliation and disappointment, historically, in Ireland, are things that would have been felt by large portions of the population down through the ages. And I guess that feeds into our drinking culture.
We’re still trying to make Europe add up
Gerard Howlin on a book that looks at the synergy of history, politics and the ideas that has brought the European Union to life and sustained it through succeeding crises.
Navigating the choppy waters of love and life
Poet Theo Dorgan has finally written a novel. He tells Caroline O’Doherty what took him so long and why the country is going in the wrong direction
Spectacular rise and ignominious decline of crusading Templars
The Tragedy of the Templars: The Rise and Fall of the Crusader States
Michael Haag
Profile Publishing, £16.99
On 1307, all Templars across France were arrested for heresy.
Essential home truths
The Book of Fate
Parinoush Saniee (translated by Sara Khalili)
Little, Brown, £14.99; Kindle, $7.99
Coming to us in the wake of a turbulent Arab Spring, the English translation of Parinoush Saniee’s controversial debut novel uncovers essential human truths by foraging among some of the foundation stones of that unrest.
Bender’s uneven collection of quirky short stories
Willful Creatures
Aimee Bender
Windmill, €11.45;Kindle, £5.51
American writer Aimee Bender has made her name for her weird, but wonderful writing.
Sharing life’s most intimate experiences
Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist made his name. His third novel reflects his return to the centre of his extended family, says Sue Leonard
Altered states: an altar boy’s struggle with sexual and national identity
The Fields
Kevin Maher
Little Brown, €14.99, ebook €8.99
When you’ve spent the last two decades chatting to Hollywood movie stars for a living, sitting on the other side of the interview couch must be strange.
A return to form for Picoult with a tale of delayed justice
The Storyteller
Jodi Picoult
Simon & Schuster €14.99, ebook €12.99
Jodi Picoult has got her writing mojo back — with a book, appropriately titled The Storyteller.
A fine Irish horse opera
Red Sky in Morning
Paul Lynch
Quercus, £12.99
Paul Lynch’s debut novel is a highly accomplished literary cowboy story. Though half of it is set in Donegal in the 1830s, it is a horse opera nonetheless.
The answer my friend is shining in the sky
Decoupling food production from hydrocarbons is vital to our survival. John Sweeney considers a book that suggests we look to the sun for an alternative source of energy
Half a dozen star turns in this year’s selection of the best European fiction<
Best European Fiction 2013
Edited by Aleksandar Hemon, Preface by John Banville
Dalkey Archive Press, €13
The appearance of Dalkey Archive Press’s annual anthology, Best European Fiction, is now an eagerly awaited event on the literary calendar.
Economic promiscuity <
On the Floor
Aifric Campbell
Serpents Tail, £7.99
Aifric Campbell writes what she knows.
A remarkable short story collection worthy of acclaim
The Gurkha’s Daughter
Prajwal Parajuly
Quercus, £8.96; Kindle, £8.22
The eight stories that make up Indian author Prajwal Parajuly’s much heralded literary debut focus on the lives of Nepalese people, whether eking out an existence at home or struggling to survive in an exiled state.