Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 230
The Elusive Quest: Reconciliation in Northern Ireland by Norman Porter
Paperback; 27.00 Euro / 33.00 USD / 20.00 UK; 290 pages [Add To Basket]
As Northern Ireland comes to terms with the nitty-gritty of the peace process, an award-winning commentator suggests a moral pathway towards a new and enlightened society in this new book. Porter is one of the most respected writers on Northern Ireland politics. His previous book, Rethinking Unionism (I have one copy left in paperback priced at 20 Euro) published in 1996 is widely credited with suggesting a shift in Unionist thinking which facilitated the Good Friday Agreement. Turning his attention towards post-Agreement politics, Porter argues that 'reconciliation matters' and that, while there are genuine problems, they are 'not of such an order that they defy the powers of human with, imagination and determination to resolve.' At its core, the book treats reconciliation as a moral idea which 'makes demands on how we live and think as social, political and cultural beings.' This book is indispensable reading for anyone with an interest in Northern Ireland, and in broader issues of conflict resolution
Ireland Bed & Breakfast 2003 from Stilwells
Paperback with colour photos throughout; 13.50 Euro / 17.00 USD / 10.00 UK; 220 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is an essential guide to the B&Bs in Ireland and Northern Ireland. It contains colour photos and maps. It has over 1200 entries listed by county and location - private houses, country halls, farms, cottages, inns, small hotels and guest houses. Each entry includes room rates, facilities, Tourist Board grades, local maps and a description of the B&B, its location and surroundings.
Patrick Kavanagh: A Poet's Country: Selected Prose edited by Antoinette Quinn
Paperback; 14.99 Euro / 18.50 USD / 10.50 UK; 320 pages [Add To Basket]
While Patrick Kavanagh (1904-67) was above all a poet, for most of his writing life he was a prolific author of critical and autobiographical prose. Work for newspapers and magazines was often his main source of income, and provided him with a necessary outlet for his views on the writers of his time, and past times; on the spiritual function of poetry; and on his own background and experiences as an isolated genius - impoverished, sometimes ostracized, and surrounded, as he saw it, by mediocrity. The prose complements the poetry, telling the reader things about Patrick Kavanagh that the poems do not. This is the first authoritative gathering of the shorter prose writings. It is both a reliable scholarly edition and immensely readable, entertaining collection. It contains the essential shorter prose works from throughout Kavanagh's career: the legendary autobiographical pieces and rural reminiscences, as well as a thorough selection of Kavanagh's penetrating, sometimes scabrous, literary criticism. Its verve and musicality, poignancy and pitch, rage and glory, expressed as no other the voice of rural Ireland.
Out to Lunch: Poets from Dublin's lunchtime reading series edited by John McNamee
Paperback with flaps; 11.99 Euro / 14.00 USD / 8.50 UK; 128 pages [Add To Basket]
This anthology is a gathering of some of the most gifted poets writing in Ireland today. These poets, have, over the years, read their work at the Out to Lunch series of readings, hosted by the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre. Since its inception in January 1988, the series have developed an enduring popularity, presenting contemporary and, indeed, living poetry at a convenient time in one of Dublin's finest city centre venues. This is anthology is an invitation to the readings and an invitation to explore the work of contemporary Irish poets. It includes the work of seasoned practitioners in both Irish and English, from Seamus Heaney, Medbh McGuckian, Paula Meehan, John Montague, and Gabriel Rosenstock; through to young, emerging poets like Paul Grattan, Conor O'Callaghan, Kate O'Shea and Enda Wyley. Ireland possesses a rich heritage of literary tradition. Poets reading and engaging with the public in this series help to ensure that this tradition lives on. By way of celebrating this, the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre has produced one of the most comprehensive anthologies of contemporary poetry in Ireland today.
The Face of the Earth by Medbh McGuckian
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 7.50 UK [Add To Basket]
Through the prism of illness and loss, these meditations move away from McGuckian's recent books' concentrations on violence and political strife towards an acceptance of the natural order of the world. As she arrives at a mystical interpretation based on faith, the poet renders her apprehensions of renewal I characteristically rich rhythms and with dynamic emotional force.
Also available in Hardback; 20.00 Euro / 25.00 USD / 15.00 UK.
Erris by Sean Lysaght
Paperback - 11.50 Euro / 13.75 USD / 8.00 UK [Add To Basket]
Lysaght is a poet treasured for his explorations of the discipline of silence and watching. In this new collection, his local focus is refracted through broader perspectives. His poems adopt a strategy by which a moment observing the natural landscape becomes a prelude to meditation while, in a sequence about his native city of Limerick, a speaker plays devil's advocate with ideas about the value of tradition in an Ireland hurrying to forsake it. The book also includes an extended narrative dramatizing a move westward, to Connacht, with all the tensions of that phrase's unsaid counterpart.
Also available in Hardback - 22.00 Euro / 27.00 USD / 15.50 UK.
Fuselage by Justin Quinn
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 7.50 UK [Add To Basket]
Quinn's first collections exhibited a rare stylistic and emotional range in the way that they addressed their author's transition to Eastern Europe and the wider upheavals of the 1990s. In this collection, he tenders his finest work to date. As a convincing register of the modern world's concerns and ills, it welds the private and panoramic, the micro-vision and overview. Changes in scale and scope coincide with a startling medley of forms and tones. From the luminescence of a child's birth, through the inflammation of political passion and sacrifices, and on to its spiritual revelations, this is a book of unusual coherence and compelling claims.
Also available in Hardback; 20.00 Euro / 25.00 USD / 15.00 UK.
Love and Sleep by Sean O'Reilly
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 14.00 USD / 8.50 UK; 200 pages [Add To Basket]
Arriving in Derry, years after he left for a wandering life - from city to city in Europe, from woman to woman - Niall finds the damaged city of his youth to have changed in all but character. His family too has fractured, and Niall's failure to show up at his father's funeral has encouraged a bitter response. Haunted by past and present fears that threaten to consume him, Niall's dangerous relationship with Lorna threatens to push him even closer to destruction. This is a compelling novel, a portrait of a self-damaged society, and lingers with a resonance long after the book has been finished.
Half Moon Lake by Una Brankin
Paperback; 11.00 Euro / 14.00 USD / 8.50 UK; 400 pages [Add To Basket]
Grace grew up in the shadow of her widowed mother and her superstitious, overbearing neighbours in the remote town of Preachers Bay in Northern Ireland. One summer evening, a stranger knocks on their door, desperately seeking refuge. As Grace helps to nurse him back to health, she experiences at last the love that she has so innocently yet dementedly craved and that has long been denied. Now, two decades later, Grace thinks back to her childhood and that steamy summer of 1976. And finally, we learn the truth behind her lifelong reclusiveness, her relationship with her mother, and her first and only love.
Special Places to Stay in Ireland 2003 by Alastair Sawday
Paperback; 22.50 Euro / 28.50 USD / 15.50 UK; 260 pages, full colour throughout [Add To Basket]
This book is as refreshingly honest as the people and houses it describes. It projects a genuine enthusiasm about the places, for they are either beautiful, or simple, or surprising, or modest, or original - or all of possess all of these qualities. It contains details on nearly 250 B&Bs, hotels and holiday homes.
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