You don’t need to be an astronaut to feel out of sorts with the world is the prevailing message of this lovely collection of stories
A fascinating trawl through Ulysses’ notes and drafts demonstrates that the Blooms were not born out of James Joyce’s vision, but evolved, awkwardly, through revisions
A tribute to a once-marginalised sculptor argues that his work is central to Irish art,writes Brian Lynch
This original and erudite analysis work gets to the heart of Joyce’s work, says Barry McCrea
The Frieze magazine wrier explores the origins and development of ‘pretentious’ thought in art and culture – and comes to some surprisingly personal conclusions
This catalogue of contradiction and desire is extremely funny and absorbing, writes Anakana Schofield
Paperback review
A lack of narrative cohesion leaves this much-hyped debut novel floundering
The shame of birth outside marriage led Caitríona Palmer’s mother to keep her a secret. With this memoir Palmer purges herself of the misery they endured
Manchán Magan, great-grand nephew of The O’Rahilly, on a son’s biography of the man who tried to stop the Rising but became the only rebel leader to be killed in action
The Canadian chief secretary emerges as an ambitious but well-intentioned, tragic figure, caught between Irish nationalism and Britain’s postwar political instability
The late Nobel laureate’s wonderful, unflagging translation even brings to vigorous life the less appealing part of the poem, writes Bernard O’Donoghue
An on-the-ground reimagining of the protests at the 1999 WTO summit in Seattle
Review
Romanian writer’s remarkable second novel is well served by a graceful, eloquent translation
Lack of a narrative analysis could put non-experts off but the contributions are significant, writes Robert Gerwarth
This book’s message is that unless we do much better as a society to regulate sports bodies that we fund the scandals that blight the world’s favourite sport will never end
Critchley claims we lack an adequate vocabulary for the subject, but his book is full of lucid, fluent and perhaps consoling formulations, suggests Brian Dillon
Aimlessness quickly emerges as the theme as the observant narrator inhabits a bubble of disengagement in this small, all too human story, making for a rueful, unoriginal debut
Parnell became in 1880 only the third foreigner to address the US Congress, a high point of Irish-American political clout, whose rise and fall is ably documented in this study
Cultural analysis meets theology to create a bricolage of hope and fear in which Augustine and Alexander Pope face John Calvin, Chris Martin, Batman and Hunger Games
Joseph O’Connor finds this well-researched, competent biography of Ireland’s first rock star, Phil Lynott, a dispiriting read, and pays his own trbiute
Humorous writing can seem easy to dismiss, says Tara Flynn, but when it’s good the blood, sweat and tears that go into it come from same glands as those of the Big Lit lads
There are second husbands, second thoughts and second chances in this provocative and moving debut collection from a New York psychiatrist
That this totally Protestant artist and thoroughly attractive individual created such a body of work is fortunate for the lower-case catholic country he served and loved
Essay collection questions whether the Irish really are the most oppressed people ever
Paperback Review
An English and Bengali speaking author who explores identity writes a book in Italian
An entertaining history of Russia’s Romanov dynasty favours narrative drive over analysis
As this gripping, readable study of the Armenian genocide makes clear, Germany long before the Nazis had come to terms with ‘Völkermord’
Sara Baume praises a fine-spun illustration of what the American dream has amounted to, peopled by men up to old-fashioned tricks, stalked by new-fashioned disillusionment
Angus Mitchell, the foremost authority on Casement, has written a superlative book about the humanitarian pioneer and Irish patriot, writes Frank MacGabhann
In his search for a lost girl, a troubled dream detective has business with the dead in this haunting, highly original semi-fantasy, writes Eoin McNamee
Anne Haverty admires a satire on the reality of ever-encroaching mass surveillance with a passionate vein of seriousness
A fairytale atmosphere runs through this intriguing Irish debut novel but the endless wordplay is finally wearying, finds Sarah Gilmartin
Irish-Canadian writes about mental illness with peculiar decency and candour in this caustically funny novel, says Eileen Battersby
Seldom has Irish suburban life – especially the lives of girls and women – been so sensitively and wittily, portrayed, writes Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
This tale of an Irish oncologist in New Yorlk is an honest, no-frills clinical account of illness and death
This worthy addition to maritime fiction genre has big ideas and a compelling story, writes Paraic O’Donnell
Andrew Hankinson’s dramatic account of a murderer’s last days, told mostly in the second person, seeks to judge whether his actions were other than vile, says Rob Doyle
Jacobson’s novel is a complex reworking of Shakespeare’s original, writes Christina Hunt Mahony
This damning portrait of the planner who most shaped modern New York, aside from being a considerable work of biography, is a near-peerless work of narrative nonfiction
A study of an ordinary, quietly heroic life is one of the finest novels of the 20th century
The 1623 folio is a vital resource as it contains 18 plays that would otherwise have been lost
The author cannot hide his hero worship of the flawed Sun Records founder who ‘discovered’ Elvis
Larkin was away during Ireland’s revolutionary years and cut a sorry figure, writes Bryce Evans, but remains a hero
The conviction of the death-camp guard was immensely important, according to Lawrence Douglas, as it bestowed culpability on passive facilitators of genocide
The author traces democracy’s fragile beginnings in ancient Athens – and explodes a few myths of what it was really like
Flamboyant writing combined with a tragic subject make the author’s fifth novel a searing, unforgettable read, writes Eileen Battersby
Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue’s awe-inspiring and illuminating work examines the poet’s many different voices, and how he did them, writes Michael O’Loughlin
Sparkling essays from its contributors add up to an insightful narrative of a nation
Mixing historical detail with humour and an engaging romantic subplot, Barrett has written an unusual and entertaining yarn
Historic differences and personality clashes meant the ‘special relationhip’ was often fractious. Barr handles this complex subject skillfully and effectively, writes David Murphy
There are interesting contributions here on dilemmas facing Northern Ireland Protestants but ancient chips weigh heavily on shoulders of its editors, writes Susan McKay
This is a useful guide to cyber warfare but the density of information may make readers feel like data-trackers struggling to discern key points amid the torrent, writes Rob Doyle
The Dublin-born author’s passionate, promiscuous nature is laid bare in this well-edited collection, as are her conflicted views on Ireland, ‘island of spells, provincial pigsty’
An Australian writer’s powerful take on climate change and emotional loss creates a buzz
Pound’s pro-Nazi radio rants landed him in deep trouble with US authorities after the war, as this third of a landmark three-volume biography describes
This expensive, glossy tome on the Wood Quay excavations is a marvel of design and colour but compromised by poor writing and editing
This meditative novel by the author of The Vegetarian is heartbreaking and amazingly disjointed
Barnes’s prose is thoughtful and elegant, but in the end you hope for less talk about art and more art itself in this fictional account of the life of Shostakovich under Stalinism
A master of the postmodern tale
The author is besotted with his subject and lacks objectivity, which is one thing when dissecting Allen’s cultural influences, another when focusing on his controversial sex life
A defiant fabulism counteracts urge towards intellectual abstraction in this collective ‘novel-essay’ about art’s value and meaning
A disturbing account of a Polish town’s complicity in killing Jews, and the difficulties the author confronted while researching the book, writes Lawrence Douglas
Pulitzer Prize-winner Stacy Schiff’s straightforward account of the witch trials is meticulously documented but very repetitive, and brings little new, writes Molly McCloskey
Doyle’s storytelling is compelling, engaging, suffused with wit, honesty and emotional intelligence but it is still only a tentative foray. There is more, and better, to come
This work, as well as being beautifully illustrated, succeeds as a memoir, an anthology and as an outstanding act of theatre criticism, writes Patrick Lonergan
This debut novel is a sharply written, brutal depiction of a Dallas waitress’s spiral into a world of misogyny, black-out sex and drug-fuelled binges
A difficult Belfast woman considered the greatest stained-glass artist of all time is brought back into the light in this gorgeous book, writes Roy Foster
paperback review
A voracious reader and astute tastemaker, his essays cover intimidatingly huge subjects, including US politics, feminism, dance, gay rights, gender studies and psychedelia
Friendship and betrayal, hope and guilt and the torment of remembering are Drago Jancar’s themes in this kaleidoscopic, communal war novel, writes Eileen Battersby
The former head of the US Federal Reserve’s account of crisis policy is well-written and insightful but too specialised, says Patrick Honohan
The collective achievement of this book is to identify so many neglected but vital cultural interdependencies between France and Ireland
Paraic O’Donnell admires this fusion of nature writing with a stark, moving memoir of addiction, from excess in London to redemption back on Orkney’s extremities
This biography argues that, despite his rhetoric and invective, Devoy displayed a flexibility and moderation not in keeping with his implacable public image
Lucy McDiarmid’s study of women on both sides of the Easter 1916 divide is a meticulously researched and beautifully packaged eye-opener
This beautifully produced collector’s item puts the theatre’s bit-part rebels in the spotlight
Sharply analysed and superbly told, Keith Jeffery depicts the year 1916 as the third decisive act in a gruelling five-act tale of global carnage
Photographs, paintings, clothes and buildings provide a new set of angles on the events that convulsed Ireland 100 years ago
Patterson vividly recreates a time when the charming auto visionary set up shop in Belfast with his car that would be king,
Talking squirrels, neuroscience and marriage dilemmas from an engaging voice
Dublin-born Janet McNeill caught the voice of the Belfast middle class in a series of sporadically revived novels
Browner review
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