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A deeply moving novel about a boy and his dream, from the prize-winning author of As You WereJamie O'Neill loves the colour red. He also loves tall trees, patterns, rain that comes with wind, the curvature of many objects, books with dust jackets, cats, rivers and Edgar Allan Poe. At age 13 there are two things he especially wants in life: to build a Perpetual Motion Machine, and to connect with his mother Noelle, who died when he was born. In his mind these things are intimately linked. And at his new school, where all else is disorientating and overwhelming, he finds two people who might just be able to help him. How to Build a Boat is the story of how one boy and his mission transforms the lives of his teachers, Tess and Tadhg, and brings together a community. Written with tenderness and verve, it's about love, family and connection, the power of imagination, and how our greatest adventures never happen alone. ISBN 9781787303461 -
On a boat offshore, a fisherman guts a mackerel as he anxiously awaits a midnight rendezvous. Villagers, one by one, disappear into a sinkhole beneath a yew tree. A nameless girl is taped, bound and put on display in a countryside market. A man returning home following the death of his mother finds something disturbing among her personal effects. A dazzling and disquieting collection of stories, how to gut a fish places the bizarre beside the everyday and then elegantly and expertly blurs the lines. An exciting new Irish writer whose sharp and lyrical prose unsettles and astounds in equal measure, Sheila Armstrong s exquisitely provocative stories carve their way into your mind and take hold. 'Dark, devilishly well written and full of atmosphere, How to Gut a Fish is one of the most original and affecting short story collections I ve read in years' Jan Carson. 'In sumptuous and evocative prose, Sheila Armstrong writes stories that are unnerving and unsettling. Stories which make you go, wait, wait, what was that? ' Claire Fuller. ISBN 9781526635822 -
I AM, I AM, I AM is a memoir with a difference - the unputdownable story of an extraordinary woman's life in near-death experiences. Insightful, inspirational, gorgeously written, it is a book to be read at a sitting, a story you finish newly conscious of life's fragility, determined to make every heartbeat count. A childhood illness she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. A terrifying encounter on a remote path. A mismanaged labour in an understaffed hospital. Shocking, electric, unforgettable, this is the extraordinary memoir from Costa Novel-Award winner and Sunday Timesbestselling author Maggie O'Farrell. It is a book to make you question yourself. What would you do if your life was in danger, and what would you stand to lose? ISBN 9781472240767 -
Learn about the life and times of Brian Boru in the second book in John & Fatti Burke's Little Library. Get ready to make your knowledge a bit bigger by learning all about the warrior king that was Brian Boru. Brian Boru grew up in a large warrior family over 1,000 years ago in Killaloe, Co Clare. One of twelve sons, Brian and his brothers practiced raids on other counties from the River Shannon. Eventually, Brian's army and navy grew to be so big that he became King of all Ireland. But up in Dublin, the Vikings were invading. So he gathered his men and went into battle ... Great for Ages 7-12. ISBN 9780717184569 -
Pollination is a very important part of the life cycle of plants. This title explores the role of bees in the pollination process. Readers will see that many of their favorite fruits, vegetables and plants depend on the hard work of bees. Full-colour illustrations with fun, rhyming text introduces young readers to bees, and the many fruits and vegetables they pollinate. Dolores Keaveney is a children's book author and illustrator living in Ireland. Great for Ages 0-6. ISBN 9781760360962 -
It's 1899, and fourteen-year-old Evelyn Wells has just won the opportunity of a lifetime: a scholarship to study music at an isolated and mysterious conservatoire. Evie leaves her family and moves to Dower Hall to begin her lessons with renowned maestro, Lionel Thorn. But all is not as it seems at the rambling old manor. Evie soon realises that Dower Hall harbours many dark secrets and some strange and threatening characters. There are secret doors at every turn, and a peculiar little harp seems to contain a dangerous kind of magic. Great for Ages 8-12 ISBN 9781788461436 -
Gina and Karol Daly have always been larger than life, there just isn't as much of them anymore. Together they've lost almost ten stone, and they've done it while eating food that looks like it could have come straight from the local takeaway. Just over a year ago they started sharing their recipes on Instagram and have since garnered over 100,000 followers between them. The Daly Dish is the first collection of recipes that have made the couple an Instagram sensation. For anyone who wants to eat the food they love, but with slimming tweaks that support weight loss and maintenance, it is packed with delicious and easy-to-recreate meals, proving you can lose weight while still loading your plate! ISBN 9780717186495 -
Flann O'Brien's innovative metafictional work, whose unruly characters strike out their own paths in life to the frustration of their author, At Swim-Two-Birds is a brilliant impressionistic jumble of ideas, mythology and nonsense. Flann O'Brien's first novel tells the story of a young, indolent undergraduate, who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dubin and spends far too much time drinking with his friends. When not drunk or in bed he likes to invent wild stories peoples with hilarious and unlikely characters - but somehow his creations won't do what he wants them to. A dazzling work of farce, satire, folklore and absurdity that gives full rein to its author's dancing intellect and Celtic wit, At Swim-Two-Birds is both a brilliant comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, and a portrayal of Dublin to compare with Joyce's Ulysses. Brian O Nuallain, (1911-1966), better known by his pseudonym Flann O'Brien, was born in Strabane, County Tyrone, and studied at University College Dublin before joining the Irish Civil Service. ISBN 9780141182681 -
The Glossie Influencer Awards are fast approaching and Ali Jones is hell-bent on a win and breaking through 10,000 followers on Instagram. But when Ali inadvertantly leads people to believe she's pregnant, she quickly realises that playing the 'Mummy-Influencer' card could be her ticket to Insta-success. And she's not going to let a small detail like a fake pregnancy get in her way. Even if the reappearance of Tinder Sam, who seems determined to take his role of 'baby' daddy seriously, makes things a little more complicated ... Elsewhere on Insta, Shelly Devine, Ireland's biggest influencer (and Ali's idol) is also guarding secrets from her followers, and her husband ... Both Ali and Shelly have decisions to make but as the night of the Glossies draws near, will they realise what's important before they lose what matters most? ISBN 9781529343397 -
For almost fifty years, Katie has kept a box of secrets. It dates from her time working as a nurse in a west of Ireland mother and baby home, and contains a notebook with details of the babies and young women she met there. It also holds many of the babies' identity bracelets. Following the death of her husband, Katie makes a decision she has long kept at bay. She posts a message on an internet forum, knowing that the information she possesses could help reunite adopted people with their birth mothers. Soon, the replies are rolling in, and Katie encounters success, failure, heartache and joy as she finds herself in the role of part-detective, part-counsellor - chasing down leads, piecing together stories, and returning many of the bracelets to their original owners. But there is one bracelet in the box that holds the key to a story that may never be told ... The Paper Bracelet is a gripping and moving story of secrets, lies and a love that never dies. ISBN 9781472264664 -
Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died. Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don't always mean what they say. But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally's life will be thrown into chaos once again... -
Staff Pick: "A selection of excellent short stories which give a window into contemporary Northern Irish life. Erskine captures tragedy and humour in a way that is simultaneously straightforward and complex." Sarah U. -
Staff Pick: "This is possibly the most skilfully crafted memoir I have ever read. Seán Hewitt is first and foremost a poet and you can certainly tell by his exquisite writing in this gothic memoir. Hewitt recounts his university days, a post-graduation trip he takes to Colombia where he meets Elias who he falls deeply in love with, through to their experience living together in Sweden. This is so much more than a love story though, it explores the complexities of mental health and queerness, and the anguish of being in love with someone who struggles with their mental health. But this story is not unrelentingly dark. At its root, it is a story of hope." Amy. -
Following the events of one single day in Dublin, the 16th June 1904, and what happens to the characters Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly, Ulysses is a monument to the human condition. It has survived censorship, controversy and legal action, and even been deemed blasphemous, but remains an undisputed modernist classic: ceaselessly inventive, garrulous, funny, sorrowful, vulgar, lyrical and ultimately redemptive. It confirms Joyce's belief that literature 'is the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man'. 'The most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape' T. S. Eliot 'Everybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the century' Anthony Burgess, Observer 'Intoxicating ...a towering work, in its word play surpassing even Shakespeare' Guardian ISBN 9780141182803 -
Willard, his mother and his girlfriend Nyla have spent their entire lives in waiting in the Line where daily survival is dictated by the ultimate imperative: obey the rules, or you will lose your place. But everything changes the day Willard’s mother dies and he finds an incomprehensible book hidden among her few belongings… In its Beckettian sparseness, Line pushes the boundaries of high concept fiction. Deeply moving, it also touches on many of the pressing issues of our turbulent world: migration and the refugee crisis, big data and the erosion of democracy, climate change, colonialism, economic exploitation, social conformity and religious fanaticism. Line is speculative fiction at its most ambitious, leading the reader on a journey to make sense of a world that is ultimately not so different from our own. ISBN 9781916291423 -
Anne Enright, one of Ireland's most remarkable writers, has just had two babies: a girl and a boy. Making Babies, is the intimate, engaging, and very funny record of the journey from early pregnancy to age two. Written in dispatches, typed with a sleeping baby in the room, it has the rush of good news - full of the mess, the glory, and the raw shock of it all. An antidote to the high-minded, polemical 'How-to' baby manuals, Making Babies also bears a visceral and dreamlike witness to the first years of parenthood. Anne Enright wrote the truth of it as it happened, because, for these months and years, it is impossible for a woman to lie. ISBN 9780099437628 -
The third book in the Little Library series. When your collection is complete, you'll have a little library - and big knowledge! Discover the REVOLUTIONARY that was CONSTANCE MARKIEVICZ. Constance Markievicz grew up in Co. Sligo in the late 1800s with a dream: she wanted Ireland to become free and the people to be treated fairly. She spent her life working to make these things happen. With rebellion in the air, she was asked for advice on how a lady should dress. Her answer? 'Dress suitably in short skirts and strong boots, leave your jewels in the bank and buy a revolver.'And the Easter Rising began ... Great for Ages 7-12. ISBN 9780717184552 -
The 8th Amendment was a constitutional ban on abortion in Ireland, which remained in effect from 1983 to its repeal by popular vote in 2018. ‘In her Shoes - Women of the Eighth’ began as a grassroots movement on Facebook sharing anonymous stories of the negative impacts of the 8th. Within six months, the ‘In Her Shoes’ Facebook page had an organic following of 115,000 and a reader reach of 4 million per week. Creator and curator, Erin Darcy, now tells the story of how ‘In Her Shoes’ came to be, touching on themes of birth and pregnancy loss, grief, depression, motherhood and activism. Fully illustrated by the author, this book will speak to the historical importance of women’s storytelling and include a collection of individual stories from 32 anonymous contributors, representing the 32 counties on the island of Ireland. ISBN 9781848407626
