Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 149
Conamara Blues by John O'Donohue (Hardback; 12.99 IEP / 16.00 USA / 10.00 UK) [Add To Basket]
Conamara in the West of Ireland has a strange beauty. In this collection of poetry, John O'Donohue (of Anam Cara fame) evokes the vital energy and rhythm of Conamara, engaging with earth, sky and sea, and the majestic mountains that preside over this terse landscape. As he explores the silent memory of this place, he focuses on the power of language and the vagaries of human need and passion, tenderly revealing the fragile vulnerability of love and friendship. Written with penetrating insight, this book offers a unique, imaginative vision of a landscape of hope and possibility that is at once both familiar and unknown.
Slow Time: 100 Poems to Take You There edited by Niall MacMonagle (Hardback; 9.99 IEP / 12.50 USA / 8.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
This collection brings together relaxing, inspiring and meditative verse from leading Irish and international modern poets. The poems provide a commentary on the personal and yet universally felt experiences that shape our lives: love, death, laughter and sorrow, childhood and old age, the natural world and the urban environment, the past and the future. This book contains poetry that speaks to the soul; these are poems that will stay with you.
Sunday Miscellany edited by Marie Heaney (Paperback; 10.99 IEP / 13.50 USD / 9.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
Listening to Sunday Miscellany on RTE Radio 1 is a familiar Sunday morning ritual for thousands of Irish people who tune in regularly to hear contributions which range from personal reminiscences to the praise of heroes, from sporting highlights to historical events, from humorous interludes to poignant memories. This selection brings together known and lesser known writers in a celebration of the rich fabric of life and culture, the inventiveness of the human voice and the scope of the human mind, including the most memorable pieces from the last five years. Giving the reader a sense of place and past, of humour and of sadness, these vignettes are the essence of Sunday Miscellany, and of the Sunday mornings it has made its own.
Being Irish edited by Paddy Logue (Paperback; 14.95 IEP / 18.00 USA / 13.00 UK) [Add To Basket]
This book gathers together a diverse group of 100 people - each trying to identify and give expression to that special something that is (more or less) instantly recognisable as Irish; to detect and describe changes in it; and the record for the present and future generations the rich tapestry that is Irish identity today. The contributors come from the famous and not so famous, people at the centre of things and people on the margins, men and women, nationalists and unionists, those who live in Ireland and those who live abroad. The book aims to create a debate about the Irish identity, to acknowledge difference and encourage tolerance. Above all, it illuminates and entertains.
Irish Classics by Declan Kiberd (Hardback; 30.00 IEP / 36.00 USA / 25.00 UK) [Add To Basket]
In this ambitious survey of the enduring Irish classics - works that stay fresh and challenge every generation - the author offers his readers something original: a brilliant and accessible discussion of the greatest works since 1600 in the two languages that have shaped one of the world's most vibrant literary cultures. Each chapter is devoted to the art of a single writer, and usually focuses on an outstanding representative text. The book opens with a meditation on the fall of the bardic order as part of the catastrophe that engulfed traditional Irish society after the Elizabethan and Cromwellian wars. Irish poets encountered modernity as a cataclysm, and were forced to respond to it by using traditional forms in novel and radical ways, at once conservative and revolutionary. The author argues that his formal tension has remained one of the most distinctive characteristics of literature produced in Ireland. He is equally at home discussing the mordant poetry in the Irish language, and his account of the great elegy, 'The Lament for Art O'Leary' is a tour de force. And his chapters on lesser known writers will be a revelation to many readers. The book closes with a moving and daring coda on the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and the claim that the seeds of the Agreement 'were sown in the works of Irish literature'; for as the author argues, 'an unprecedented knowledge is possible in zones where cultures collide.'
Ireland's Superbrands: An Insight into Ireland's Strongest Brands edited by Noel Derby (Hardback; 35.00 IEP / 45.00 US / 30.00 UK) [Add To Basket]
The accomplishments of certain brands are awesome. But who have they achieved such phenomenal success? This book explores the history, development and achievements of many of the strongest brands in the world, revealing extraordinary findings. The book opens with the expert comment of members of the Superbrands Council - numbering some of the most respected figures in the communications industry - on why consumers demonstrate such loyalty to Superbrands.
Irish Countrywomen's Association: A History 1910 - 2000 by Aileen Heverin (Paperback; 9.99 IEP / 13.50 USA / 8.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
With a ninety-year history and over 1000 guilds throughout Ireland, the Irish Countrywomen's Association is undoubtedly the oldest and largest women's organisation in the country. Founded in 1910 as the Society of United Irish women, it has been at the forefront of women's affairs through every decade of the twentieth century. This book draws from the organisation's own records to tell the story of the advance of women in Ireland during the course of the last nine decades - the successes and the struggles intertwined with the people, politics and places.
The Weird and Wonderful World of Wills by Eamonn G. Mongey (Paperback; 8.99 IEP / 12.50 USA / 7.50 UK) [Add To Basket]
This fascinating book approaches the topic of wills in unusual ways. It contains interesting ideas on how and why people should make wills, and why wills are condemned. It tells the stories of the will that was written on an eggshell; the woman who wanted to be buried in Ferrair; the bachelor who gave the residue of his estate to the woman who had the most children within ten years of his death. It also contains the actual wills of Daniel O'Connell, George Bernard Shaw, Alfred Chester Beatty and Marilyn Monroe. The book is written with gusto and verve, as well as with skill and impeccable legal knowledge.
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