SIGNED LIMITED 1ST EDITION HARDBACK
A New Signed 1st Edition 1st Printing Hardback with 1 included on the title page number line - signed for the Gutter Bookshop on 3rd November 2017. 'Motherhood, nurture and violence - these are the themes of Elske Rahill's remarkable first collection, In White Ink. Rahill brings to life the psychological and physical reality of mothering, pregnancy and childbirth in ways that few others writers have attempted. The precision of Rahill's prose, the stoicism of her unflinching narrative gaze, reveal characters caught up in violently emotional situations. The version of motherhood found here is painful. Yet its endurance, as nature's greatest force, is brilliantly and compassionately rendered.' ISBN 9781786691040Our booksellers have picked out their favourite Irish books and Irish writing, so do have a browse of our Irish picks here and discover some new books from “the land of saints and scholars”… And remember – we offer Free Postage in ROI on orders over €30 – just choose the Free Postage option at checkout.
-
*50% OFF SALE TITLE - WAS €21.10, NOW €10.55* -
Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life-changing begins. Normal People is a story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can't. 'The literary phenomenon of the decade.' - Guardian ISBN 9780571334650 -
Holding her first grandchild in her arms in 2003, Mary Robinson was struck by the uncertainty of the world he had been born into. Before his fiftieth birthday, he would share the planet with more than nine billion people - people battling for food, water, and shelter in an increasingly volatile climate. The faceless, shadowy menace of climate change had become, in an instant, deeply personal. Mary Robinson's mission would lead her all over the world, from Malawi to Mongolia, and to a heartening revelation: that an irrepressible driving force in the battle for climate justice could be found at the grassroots level, mainly among women, many of them mothers and grandmothers like herself. From Sharon Hanshaw, the Mississippi matriarch whose campaign began in her East Biloxi hair salon and culminated in her speaking at the United Nations, to Constance Okollet, a small farmer who transformed the fortunes of her ailing community in rural Uganda, Robinson met with ordinary people whose resilience and ingenuity had already unlocked extraordinary change. Powerful and deeply humane, Climate Justice is a stirring manifesto on one of the most pressing humanitarian issues of our time, and a lucid, affirmative, and well-argued case for hope. ISBN 9781408888438 -
One night in December 1972, Jean McConville, a mother of ten, was abducted from her home in Belfast and never seen alive again. Her disappearance would haunt her orphaned children, the perpetrators of the brutal crime and a whole society in Northern Ireland for decades. Through the unsolved case of Jean McConville's abduction, Patrick Radden Keefe tells the larger story of the Troubles, investigating Dolours Price, the first woman to join the IRA, who bombed the Old Bailey; Gerry Adams, the politician who helped end the fighting but denied his IRA past; and Brendan Hughes, an IRA commander who broke their code of silence. A gripping story forensically reported, Say Nothing explores the extremes people will go to for an ideal, and the way societies mend - or don't - after long and bloody conflict. ISBN 9780008159269 -
Caitríona Perry is an award winning Irish journalist. She has worked as a broadcast news correspondent since 2000, including four years as RTÉ’s Washington correspondent. Following her time there, she was described in the official record of the US Congress as having 'done meaningful work to shed a spotlight on modern US Ireland relations and informed audiences in both America and Ireland'. She currently anchors RTÉ’s flagship television news programme Six One. Her first book, 'In America: Tales from Trump Country', was shortlisted for an Irish Book Award. ISBN 9780717184828 -
A fierce, mordantly funny and perceptive book about the act of national self-harm known as Brexit. A great democratic country tears itself apart, and engages in the dangerous pleasures of national masochism. Trivial journalistic lies became far from trivial national obsessions; the pose of indifference to truth and historical fact came to define the style of an entire political elite; a country that once had colonies redefined itself as an oppressed nation requiring liberation. Fintan O'Toole also discusses the fatal attraction of heroic failure, once a self-deprecating cult in a hugely successful empire that could well afford the occasional disaster. Now failure is no longer heroic - it is just failure, and its terrible costs will be paid by the most vulnerable of Brexit's supporters. A new afterword lays out the essential reforms that are urgently needed if England is to have a truly democratic future and stable relations with its nearest neighbours. ISBN 9781789540994 -
Captured, abducted and married into Boko Haram, the narrator of this story witnesses and suffers the horrors of a community of men governed by a brutal code of violence. Barely more than a girl herself, she must soon learn how to survive as a woman with a child of her own. Just as the world around her seems entirely consumed by madness, bound for hell, she is offered an escape of sorts - but only into another landscape of trials and terrors amidst the unforgiving wilds of northeastern Nigeria, through the forest and beyond; a place where her traumas are met with the blinkered judgement of a society in denial. How do we love in a world that has lost its moorings? How can we comprehend the barbarism of our enemies, and learn forgiveness for atrocities committed in the name of ideology? Edna O'Brien's new novel pierces to the heart of these questions: and the result is her masterpiece. ISBN 9780571341184 -
Beginning in 1968, fifty-five personal essays and poems reveal the power of Ireland's finest writers to delve into the details of Irish life with warmth, sincerity and wit. Here, side by side, are stories around the first moon landing, the eruption of violence in the North, the visit to Ireland by Ronald Reagan, the Eurovision Song Contest, 9/11, direct provision centres, the Celtic Tiger and its crash, great sporting moments, Edna O Brien, Seán Ó Ríordáin, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs and Sinéad O'Connor, emigration, moving statues, Irish weather and water, first love and first jobs, wedding day dresses, setting up home, parenthood, illness, loss and starting over. As a record of Ireland from wonderful and unexpected angles, Miscellany 50 will amuse and intrigue for many years to come. Originally commissioned for performance at Miscellany 50 Live radio festival weekend in late 2018, this is a unique collection in a beautifully illustrated volume. ISBN 9781848407473 -
A surprising and ambitious work of fiction centred on the art world, featuring an artist who has become an art thief, an obsessive curator and a specialist in major art thefts. Their stories intersect with the fate of a legendary work by a tragic Victorian woman artist who painted the picture as a kind of funeral dress, using the notoriously fragile distemper technique. At the heart of this moving and unusual novel is a strange painting by a woman who committed suicide rather than live with neglect and pain.Her final glowingly beautiful work was painted with a technique more usual for posters and banners, and not designed to last. She intended it as her shroud. It hangs in a Dublin gallery, and it is desired by a collector who is willing to pay to have it stolen. The thief is a disillusioned, corrupted London artist coping with tragic loss. The curator of the painting is a lonely gallerist whose life centres on her work. And the man charged with recovering the stolen painting is a gay man trapped in an abusive relationship. The lives of these three damaged people, each evoked with a calm, moving sympathy reminiscent of Michael Cunningham or David Park, come together around the hauntingly strange Victorian painting. Set in London, Dublin, Northern Ireland and various European capitals, The Jewel is a major new novel from an Irish writer coming into his own. ISBN 9781789541823 -
In late 2018, Michael Harding was in a hotel room in Blanchardstown experiencing severe pains in his chest. He eventually phoned an ambulance and was admitted to hospital, suffering from an acute heart attack. Here, in Chest Pain, he looks at the months before the heart attack when he kept the signs of failing health from his beloved and instead retreated into solitude -- and with his own inimitable style and humour takes us with him through the months after a stent had been inserted in his heart, where he travels the roads of Donegal in a camper van in a journey back to the beloved, and to himself. Chest Pain is a thought-provoking, spell-binding memoir about togetherness and what it means to be alive. ISBN 9781473690677 -
The house at the end of the lane burned down, and Rita Frost and her teenage ward, Bevan, were never seen again. The townspeople never learned what happened. Only Mae and her brother Rossa know the truth; they spent two summers with Rita and Bevan, two of the strangest summers of their lives... Because nothing in that house was as it seemed: a cat who was more than a cat, and a dark power called Sweet James that lurked behind the wallpaper, enthralling Bevan with whispers of neon magic and escape. And in the summer heat, Mae became equally as enthralled with Bevan. Desperately in the grips of first love, she'd give the other girl anything. A dangerous offer when all that Sweet James desired was a taste of new flesh... Voted Teen & YA Book of the Year at the 2019 Irish Book Awards. ISBN 9781789090086 -
One night changes everything for Toby. He's always led a charmed life - until a brutal attack leaves him damaged and traumatised, unsure even of the person he used to be. He seeks refuge at his family's ancestral home, the Ivy House, filled with memories of wild-strawberry summers and teenage parties with his cousins. But not long after Toby's arrival, a discovery is made: a skull, tucked neatly inside the old wych elm in the garden. As detectives begin to close in, Toby is forced to examine everything he thought he knew about his family, his past, and himself. A spellbinding book from a novelist who takes crime writing and turns it inside out, The Wych Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, if we no longer know who we are. ISBN 9780241379530 -
For the past two decades, you could cross the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic half a dozen times without noticing or, indeed, turning off the road you were travelling. It cuts through fields, winds back-and-forth across roads, and wends from Carlingford Lough to Lough Foyle. It is frictionless - a feat sealed by the Good Friday Agreement. Before that, watchtowers loomed over border communities, military checkpoints dotted the roads, and smugglers slipped between jurisdictions. This is a past that most are happy to have left behind but might it also be the future? The border has been a topic of dispute for over a century, first in Dublin, Belfast and Westminster and, post Brexit referendum, in Brussels. Yet, despite the passions of Nationalists and Unionists in the North, neither found deep wells of support in the countries they identified with politically. British political leaders were often ignorant of the conflict's complexities, rarely visited the border, and privately disliked their erstwhile unionist allies. Southern leaders' anti-partition statements masked relative indifference and unofficial cooperation with British security services. From the 1920 Government of Ireland Act that created the border, the Treaty and its aftermath, through the Civil Rights Movement, Thatcher, the Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement up to the Brexit negotiations, Ferriter reveals the political, economic, social and cultural consequences of the border in Ireland. With the fate of the border uncertain, The Border is a timely intervention by a renowned historian into one of the most contentious and misunderstood political issues of our time. ISBN 9781788161794 -
"The bullets didn't just travel in distance, they travelled in time. Some of those bullets never stop travelling." Jack Kennedy, father of James Kennedy. On 15th August 1969, nine-year-old Patrick Rooney became the first child killed as a result of the 'Troubles' - one of 186 children who would die in the conflict in Northern Ireland. Fifty years on, these young lives are honoured in a memorable book that spans a singular era. From the teenage striker who scored two goals in a Belfast schools cup final, to the aspiring architect who promised to build his mother a house, to the five-year-old girl who wrote in her copy book on the day she died, 'I am a good girl. I talk to God', Children of the Troubles recounts the previously untold story of Northern Ireland's lost children -- and those who died in the Republic, the UK and as far afield as West Germany and the lives that might have been. Based on original interviews with almost one hundred families, as well as extensive archival research, this unique book includes many children who have never been publicly acknowledged as victims of the Troubles, and draws a compelling social and cultural picture of the era. Much loved, deeply mourned, and never forgotten, Children of the Troubles is both an acknowledgement of and a tribute to young lives lost. ISBN 9781473697355 -
On 7 January 1922, Ireland became a free state. Born into that era of turbulence and hope were the twenty-six women and men whose stories and memories of a lifetime are captured by cherished Irish journalist Valerie Cox. From recollections of the big snow of 1932, to Eamon de Valera speaking to crowds in a rural town square, to the dawning of electricity, these evocative pieces reflect both a simpler time and a tougher one, where childhood was short and the world of work beckoned from an early age. In living memory are tales of 'rambling houses' - where each night neighbours would walk over the fields to sit around the fire, drink tea and tell stories - raising a family in an earlier era, the scourge of TB, hiding out in Santry Woods when the Black and Tans raided, and pride in a father who was interned in Frongach after theEaster Rising. Also explored are thoughts on the good and bad of how life has transformed over a century. Growing Up With Ireland is a compelling portrait of an Ireland in some ways warmly familiar, and in others changed beyond recognition, from those who were there at the beginning. In How to Be a Dictator, Frank Dikotter returns to eight of the most chillingly effective personality cults of the twentieth century. From carefully choreographed parades to the deliberate cultivation of a shroud of mystery through iron censorship, these dictators ceaselessly worked on their own image and encouraged the population at large to glorify them. At a time when democracy is in retreat, are we seeing a revival of the same techniques among some of today s world leaders? This timely study, told with great narrative verve, examines how a cult takes hold, grows, and sustains itself. It places the cult of personality where it belongs, at the very heart of tyranny. ISBN 9781529337389 -
From her first life-changing solo trip to Australia as a young graduate, Rosita Boland was enthralled by travel. In the last thirty years she has visited some of the most remote parts of the globe carrying little more than a battered rucksack and a diary. Documenting nine journeys from nine different moments in her life, Elsewhere reveals how exploring the world - and those we meet along the way - can dramatically shape the course of a person's life. From death-defying bus journeys through Pakistan to witnessing the majestic icescapes of Antarctica to putting herself back together in Bali, Rosita experiences moments of profound joy and endures deep personal loss. In a series of jaw-dropping, illuminating and sometimes heart-breaking essays, Elsewhere is a book that celebrates the life well-travelled in all its messy and wondrous glory. ISBN 9781784164379 -
Boulevard Wren and Other Stories is the stunning follow-up to the bestselling Gospel According to Blindboy, and a warped mirror held up to the Irish psyche. Provocative and unsettling, the stories rove through the centuries, from the barren fields of Famine-struck Meath to the chaotic landscape of the near future, where social media has colonised the deepest recesses of the human subconscious. This is a world populated by characters lost and at odds with the demands of contemporary life, for whom the line separating redemption and madness has grown impossibly fine. Razor-sharp social satire, it is an era-defining work from one of Ireland's most anarchic satirists and a quietly devastating portrait of a society in disarray. 'Mad, wild, hysterical.' Kevin Barry, author of Night Boat to Tangier ISBN 9780717189502 -
Join Trinity's Professor Luke O'Neill on the greatest journey of them all. From the very big to the very small - vast galaxies to microscopic atoms - travel through the wonders of the universe, the mysteries of the human body, and the tiny world of molecules. Discover the Irish scientists that have helped to shape our world and find out how to become one yourself. How do we measure the universe? Why do we need plants? How do our bodies repair themselves when we are ill? What species will exist on earth in a million years' time? Discover the answers to these questions and a lot more in this thrilling and engrossing large-format hardback book packed with fascinating phenomena, vibrant illustrations, experiments you can do yourself, and heaps of fun facts. ISBN 9780717185580 Great for Ages 7-12 -
On a dark, dark night, in a very quiet library, there is an old, old, beautiful book. Looking out from the pages of the book is a plump, grey mouse. When the clock strikes twelve, the little mouse hops right off the page and begins his magical exploration of Trinity College. The mouse, however, is not alone: Four furry paws with very sharp claws follow him from the book into Trinity College. This sharp clawed cat is hungry and in search of the plump grey mouse. Follow, the night-time cat, Pangur Ban, as she searches Trinity College for the plump grey mouse. Along the way she asks for help from various figures in Trinity College, from Jonathan Swift to the Queen of England and from Oscar Wilde to Count Dracula. Will Pangur Ban catch the plump grey mouse or will this mischievous mouse evade capture? This is an enchanting tale full of adventure and discovery with illustrations by Lauren O'Neill. ISBN 9781847179456 Great for Ages 2-7 -
A stunningly presented modern-day fable from world-renowned talent Oliver Jeffers. "In an age of exquisite picture books, this is possibly the most beautiful of the year..." The Observer. There was once a man who believed he owned everything and set out to survey what was his. "You are mine," Fausto said to the flower, the sheep and the mountain, and they bowed before him. But they were not enough for Fausto, so he conquered a boat and set out to sea... Working for the first time in traditional lithography, world-renowned talent, Oliver Jeffers, combines spectacular art with powerful prose, hand set using traditional lead type, to create a poignant modern-day fable to touch the hearts of adults and children alike. ISBN 9780008357917 Great for Ages 0-99 -
Today is a very special day. It is the President's birthday and everyone is preparing a birthday surprise for him. So while the President is sent out to the Phoenix Park to walk the dogs, preparations get underway. The pigeon helpfully puts up the bunting, the postmistress delivers the birthday cards, Mrs Mullins dusts down the pictures and the cheeky cat tastes the freshly whipped cream! Meanwhile, the President enjoys tea and scones at Farmleigh House and even does a spot of yoga on the fifteen acres. But will our forgetful President enjoy his day out in the park too much to remember his own birthday party? Or will it be his turn to surprise everyone instead? ISBN 9780717188727 Great for Ages 0-6 -
"Dream big. You can't put a limit on your dreams because nothing is impossible" Katie Mullan, Ireland Hockey Captain. Are you ready to be inspired? Open this book and discover a world of courage, bravery and adventure. Adventurers, explorers, inventors, dreamers... for a small country Irish people have had a huge impact internationally. From helping street children in India, to saving Jewish children during World War II and exploring new worlds, their reach has been worldwide. From Michael Collins to Rosie Hackett, Lady Gregory to Tom Crean, this book celebrates the brave and daring Irish. Be inspired by some of Ireland's most daring and fearless men and women. ISBN 9781788491273 Great for Ages 7-12 -
SIGNED 1ST EDITION HARDBACK A New Signed 1st Edition 1st Printing Hardback with 1 included on the title page number line - signed by the author on a special bound-in page for the Gutter Bookshop on publication day 21st February 2019. From one of the greatest writers of the century comes a landmark novel of huge ambition. WHAT DO WE HIDE INSIDE OURSELVES? One night changes everything for Toby. He's always led a charmed life - until a brutal attack leaves him damaged and traumatised, unsure even of the person he used to be. He seeks refuge at his family's ancestral home, the Ivy House, filled with memories of wild-strawberry summers and teenage parties with his cousins. But not long after Toby's arrival, a discovery is made: a skull, tucked neatly inside the old wych elm in the garden. As detectives begin to close in, Toby is forced to examine everything he thought he knew about his family, his past, and himself. A spellbinding standalone from a literary writer who turns the crime genre inside out, The Wych Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, if we no longer know who we are. ISBN 9780241379509 -
*50% OFF SALE TITLE – WAS €22.50, NOW €11.25.* SIGNED 1ST EDITION HARDBACK A New Signed 1st Edition 1st Printing Hardback with '1' on the title page - signed by the author for The Gutter Bookshop on publication in April 2019. A startling and gripping novel, Suzy, Suzy follows a teenage girl trying to understand the chaos of her family life. Suzy lives in a dysfunctional household. She can't stand her mother; her father is keeping secrets; and her brother only seems to egg on their parents' erratic and unpredictable behaviour. Alongside her friends, Suzy finds herself drawn into the downward spiral of her parents' relationship, and as a result is drawn into the centre of a mystery surrounding a murder. Forced to make impossible choices, Suzy must navigate the increasingly disturbing antics of her family and the oddities of the mystery she finds herself involved in, while also trying to survive the horrors of secondary school. Narrated by a troubled young woman, the novel weaves a tale of secrets, lies and betrayal in the pressure cooker of her formative years. William Wall is an underrated Irish master with a powerful, distinctive writing style, and an uncanny ability to create astonishingly complex and well-realised female protagonists. ISBN 9781788545501 -
Luke O'Brien has left Dublin to live a quiet life on his family land on the bend of the River Sullane. Alone in his big house, he longs for a return to his family's heyday and turns to books for solace. One morning a young woman arrives at his door and enters his life with profound consequences. Her presence presents him and his family with an almost impossible dilemma. In a novel that pays glorious homage to Joyce, The River Capture tells of one man's descent into near madness, and the possibility of rescue. This is a novel about love, loyalty and the raging forces of nature. More than anything, it is a book about the life of the mind and the redemptive powers of art. ISBN 9781786898043 -
From the multi-award-winning author of the literary phenomenon A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. At the mid-point of her life a woman enters an Avignon hotel room. She's been here once before - but while the room hasn't changed, she is a different person now. Forever caught between check-in and check-out, she will go on to occupy other hotel rooms, from Prague to Oslo, Auckland to Austin, each as anonymous as the last, but bound by rules of her choosing. There, amid the detritus of her travels, the matchbooks, cigarettes, keys and room-service wine, she will negotiate with memory, with the men she sometimes meets, and with what it might mean to return home. ISBN 9780571355150 -
SIGNED 1ST EDITION HARDBACK A New Signed 1st Edition 1st Printing Hardback with 1 included on the title page number line - signed by the author on publication in February 2020. 'Clean prose, subtle characters and intrigue to keep the pages turning' Mike McCormack - 'Chilling' Christine Dwyer Hickey - 'Exquisite' Jo Spain. Twenty-five years ago, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl and her charismatic teacher disappeared without trace... When Louisa arrives at Temple House, an elite catholic boarding school, she quickly finds herself drawn to sophisticated fellow pupil Victoria and their young bohemian art teacher, Mr Lavelle. The three of them form a bond that seems to offer an escape from the repressive regime of the nuns who run the cloistered school. Until Louisa and Mr Lavelle suddenly vanish. Years later, a journalist with a childhood connection to Louisa determines to resolve the mystery. Her search for the truth will uncover a tragic, mercurial tale of suppressed desire and long-buried secrets. It will shatter lives and lay a lost soul to rest. The Temple House Vanishing is a stunning, intensely atmospheric novel of unrequited longing, dark obsession and unintended consequences. ISBN 9781786499387 -
Three brothers are at the funeral. One lies in the coffin. Will, Brian and Luke grow up competing for their mother's unequal love. As men, the competition continues - for status, money, fame, women... They each betray each other, over and over, until one of them is dead. But which brother killed him? 'Liz Nugent is a force to be reckoned with' Lisa Jewell -'Liz Nugent has a gift for filling us with a terrible fascination for truly horrible people' Val McDermid - 'Her best yet, and that's really saying something' Marian Keyes -'A dark jewel of a novel - finely observed, swift and exciting' AJ Finn. ISBN 9780241979747 -
What is the sound of a voice that is alienated from itself? How can one truthfully represent the creative process of an artist? Oona, an artist-in-the-making, lives in an affluent suburban culture of first-generation immigrants in New Jersey where conspicuous consumption and white privilege prevail, and the denial of death is ubiquitous. The silence surrounding death extends to the family home where Oona is not told while her mother lies dying of cancer upstairs. Afterwards, a silence takes hold inside her: her inner life goes into a deep freeze. Emotionally hobbled, she has her first encounters with sex, drugs and other trials of adolescence. Lyons' first novel gives voice to a female character on her fraught journey into adulthood and charts her evolution as an artist, as her adolescent dissociation is thawed through contact with the physical world, the materials of painting and her engagement with Irish community, culture and landscape. Set during the era of the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath, this is a resonant story conveyed in an innovative form. Written entirely without the letter 'o', the tone of the book reflects Oona's inner damage and the destruction caused by hiding, omitting and obliterating parts of ourselves. ISBN 9781843517719 -
50% OFF SALE - WAS €16.80, NOW €8.40. SIGNED 1ST EDITION HARDBACK A New Signed 1st Edition 1st Printing Hardback with 1 included on the title page number line - signed by the author on publication in March 2020. A cracker' Patrick McCabe - 'An irresistible comedy' Luke Kennard Laura Cassidy is going all the way. Hollywood. Starry lights. The Walk of Fame. It's her destiny. At least, that's what her movie-obsessed father used to tell her. That was always the plan. Sure, it's been a bit slow-going, but the stars have finally aligned. The long-awaited new theatre is about to open, and their first production calls for a particularly fiery female lead. This part has Laura's name on it. There's her meddlesome older sister to get past - freshly returned from saving the world. Her occasional lover and stand-in leading man seems to think it's all a waste of time. And probably best not to mention the audition to her mother, especially after what happened last time . . . Laura just has to stay one step ahead of them all. Channelling the era of Hollywood's silver screen and told in a voice that blends devil humour, quiet mayhem, and a singled-minded optimism that might just lead to disaster, Laura Cassidy's Walk of Fame tells the story of a troubled soul desperate to find her place in life. ISBN 9781509829880 -
Brian Pennie shouldn’t be alive today. His drug addiction was so bad that he was deemed too much of a risk for detox. Determined to confront his demons, he went cold turkey at home. Discovered in a pool of blood, it didn’t exactly go to plan, but that’s where his life truly began. On 8 October 2013, he was finally clean after 15 years of chronic heroin addiction, and something extraordinary happened: the world suddenly became beautiful. Free of the anxiety and fear that had always plagued him, Brian was given a second chance at life, and he devoured every minute of it. Bit by bit he rebuilt his world and began to share what he learned with others. In this incredibly honest and inspirational book, Brian shares the story of how he turned a seemingly hopeless existence into a rich and rewarding life, showing that change is always possible, no matter how stuck we feel. ISBN 9780717186358 -
"A beautiful and hopeful book for when life isn't what you expect it to be. In March 2017, Niamh Fitzpatrick's life fell apart overnight. Her beloved sister Dara was killed in a helicopter crash. Soon afterwards, Niamh's marriage disintegrated, and she feared she would lose her house, beside her remaining family. Life as she knew it had ended and the cumulative loss, in terms of impact, was staggering. A psychologist for many years, Niamh guides clients on their journey to overcome the worst of times in their lives. She had to draw on this skillset herself, first to survive and then, in time, begin to thrive after such significant loss. Tell Me the Truth About Loss documents a psychologist's journey through loss, grief and the hardest of times, finding hope along the way. ISBN 9780717183845 -
*Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2020* *Winner of non-fiction book of the year at the Irish Book Awards* -'Utterly magnificent. Raw, thought-provoking and galvanising; this is a book every woman should read.'Eimear McBride. I have come to think of all the metal in my body as artificial stars, glistening beneath the skin, a constellation of old and new metal. A map, a tracing of connections and a guide to looking at things from different angles. How do you tell the story of a life in a body, as it goes through sickness, health, motherhood? How do you tell that story when you are not just a woman but a woman in Ireland? In the powerful and daring essays in Constellations Sinead Gleeson does that very thing. All of life is within these pages, from birth to first love, pregnancy to motherhood, terrifying sickness, old age and loss to death itself. Throughout this wide-ranging collection she also turns her restless eye outwards delving into work, art and our very ways of seeing. In the tradition of some of our finest life writers, and yet still in her own spirited, generous voice, Sinead takes us on a journey that is both uniquely personal and yet universal in its resonance. Here is the fierce joy and pain of being alive. 'Breathtaking and sublime.' - Nina Stibbe. 'Absolutely extraordinary and life-enhancing.' - Daisy Buchanan, author of How to be Grown-up. ISBN 9781509892778 -
They're a glamorous family, the Caseys. Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together - birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. And they're a happy family. Johnny's wife, Jessie - who has the most money - insists on it. Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much ... Everything stays under control until Ed's wife Cara, gets concussion and can't keep her thoughts to herself... ISBN 9781405918787 -
A remarkable first collection by an important new poet. In this collection, Seán Hewitt gives us poems of a rare musicality and grace. By turns searing and meditative, these are lyrics concerned with the matter of the world, its physicality, but also attuned to the proximity of each moment, each thing, to the spiritual. Here, there is sex, grief, and loss, but also a committed dedication to life, hope and renewal. Drawing on the religious, the sacred and the profane, this is a collection in which men meet in the woods, where matter is corrupted and remade. There are prayers, hymns, vespers, incantations, and longer poems which attempt to propel themselves towards the transcendent. In this book, there is always the sense of fragility allied with strength, a violence harnessed and unleashed. The collection ends with a series of elegies for the poet's father: in the face of despair, we are met with a fierce brightness, and a reclamation of the spiritual. 'This is when / we make God, and speak in his voice.'Paying close attention to altered states and the consolations and strangeness of the natural world, this is the first book from a major poet. *SHORTLISTED for Dalkey Literary Awards Emerging Writer of the Year 2021* ISBN 9781787332263 -
A glimpse into the process of one Ireland's best writers, handiwork is Baume's non-fiction debut, written with the keen eye for nature and beauty as well as the extraordinary versatilitySara Baume's fans have come to expect. PUBLISHED 26TH MARCH 2020. ISBN 9781916434257