Non Fiction

  • Silverland charts Dervla Murphy’s extraordinary expedition through the snowscapes of Far Eastern Russia. No stranger to adventure, the intrepid septuagenarian’s mid-winter journey takes her beyond Siberia to the furthest corners of Russia – areas proximate to Japan, Mongolia and the Arctic Circle. Here she discovers a strange world of lynx and elks, indigenous tribes and shamanism, reindeer broth and taiga-berry pie.

    She takes the coal-fuelled slow-train around regions hardly exposed to tourism and there she meets a host of colourful and generous characters. They invite this unconventional Irish Babushka into their homes where she enjoys fascinating fireside debate bolstered by steaming samovars of sweet tea. Just like its author, Silverland is insightful, warm and truly original.

  • Psychedelics - Vintage Minis

    Psychedelics – Vintage Minis

    5.95

    Could drugs offer a new way of seeing the world? In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed. His account of his experience, and his vision for all that psychedelics could offer to mankind, has influenced writers, artists and thinkers around the world.

    The unabridged text of The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

    VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.

  • We Should All Be Feminists

    We Should All Be Feminists

    6.95

    ADICHIE, CHIMAMANDA NGOZI

  • Dear Ijeawele

    Dear Ijeawele

    6.95

    ADICHIE, CHIMAMANDA NGOZI

  • What is Beautiful in the Sky

    What is Beautiful in the Sky

    7.50
    Description
    ‘In these strange days Michael Harding’s route taking and wise words gently nudge us towards the future, steadying us as we navigate the great unknowns ahead’ Joe Duffy It’s dawn and in the early morning light, Michael Harding is walking in his garden in the hills above Lough Allen in Leitrim, dreaming of the new beginning in Donegal he had planned before the world changed in the early months of 2020. Here, in his stunning and intimate new book, we travel with Michael through this day as he looks back at a life lived within, and as part of, the Irish landscape. In doing so, he vividly brings to life what is at the heart of Irish identity: storytelling, love and human connection.
  • The Monk

    The Monk

    8.00
    Description
    On the streets of the tough Dublin inner-city neighbourhood where he grew up, Gerry Hutch was perceived as an ordinary decent criminal, a quintessential Robin Hood figure who fought the law – and won. To the rest of the world he was an elusive criminal godfather called the Monk: an enigmatic criminal mastermind and the hunted leader of one side in the deadliest gangland feud in Irish criminal history. The latest book from Ireland’s leading crime writer Paul Williams reveals the inside story of Hutch’s war with former allies the Kinahan cartel, and how the once untouchable crime boss became a fugitive on the run from the law and the mob – with a ?1 million bounty on his head.

    The Monk is an enthralling account of the rise and fall of a modern-day gangster, charting the violent journey of an impoverished kid from the ghetto to the top tier of gangland – until it all went wrong.

  • My Friend Anna

    My Friend Anna

    8.00

    How does it feel to be betrayed by your closest friend? A close friend who turns out to be the most prolific grifter in New York City…

    This is the true story of Anna Delvey (real name Anna Sorokin), the fake heiress whose dizzying deceit and elaborate con-artistry deceived the Soho hipster scene before her ruse was finally and dramatically exposed. After meeting through mutual friends, the ‘Russian heiress’ Anna Delvey and Rachel DeLoache Williams soon became inseparable.

    Theirs was an intoxicating world of endless excess: high dining, personal trainer sessions, a luxury holiday … and Anna footed almost every bill. But after Anna’s debit card was declined in a Moroccan medina whilst on holiday in a five-star luxury resort, Rachel began to suspect that her increasingly mysterious friend was not all she seemed.

    This is the incredible story of how Anna Sorokin conned the high-rollers of the NYC social scene and convinced her close friend of an entirely concocted fantasy, the product of falsified bank documents, bad cheques and carefully edited online photos. Written by Rachel DeLoache Williams, the Vanity Fair photography editor who believed Anna’s lies before helping the police to track her down (fittingly, deciphering Anna’s location using Instagram), this is Catch Me If You Can with Instagram filters. Between Anna, Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland (Anna even tried to scam Billy) and Elizabeth Holmes, whose start-up app duped the high and mighty of Silicon Valley, this is the year of the scammer.

  • How to stay sane in an age of division

    How to stay sane in an age of division

    8.95

    Description
    The must-read, pocket-sized Big Think book of 2020It feels like the world is falling apart. So how do we keep hold of our optimism? How do we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this world of division?In this beautifully written and illuminating polemic, Booker Prize nominee Elif Shafak reflects on our age of pessimism, when emotions guide and misguide our politics, and misinformation and fear are the norm. A tender, uplifting plea for optimism, Shafak draws on her own memories and delves into the power of stories to reveal how writing can nurture democracy, tolerance and progress.

    And in the process, she answers one of the most urgent questions of our time.

  • Disobedient Bodies

    Disobedient Bodies

    9.50

    An unmissable essay from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Don’t Touch My Hair and What White People Can Do Next.

    For too long, beauty has been entangled in the forces of patriarchy and capitalism: objectification, shame, control, competition and consumerism. We need to find a way to do beauty differently.

    This radical, deeply personal and empowering essay points to ways we can all embrace our unruly beauty and enjoy our magnificent, disobedient bodies. It accompanies The Cult of Beauty, a major exhibition at Wellcome Collection, opening in October 2023.

  • Above Water

    Above Water

    9.95
    Description
    “When my parents signed me up to Trojan Swimming Club, they had no idea of the evil behind Gibney’s interest in me. As a thirteen-year-old, who knew nothing but kindness and love, I was ill-equipped to understand what was happening as he insidiously dominated my thinking and isolated me from anyone who might come between us. The process of entrapment was quick, and in full view of my family and team-mates I became a prisoner – bullied, manipulated and abused, unnoticed by those close to me.
  • I Loved Him From the Day He Died

    I Loved Him From the Day He Died

    9.95
    Description
    ‘I wanted him to be someone he wasn’t. I wanted me to be someone I wasn’t.’A stunning new book from the number one bestselling, award-winning author of All the Things Left Unsaid and Staring at Lakes. To mark his 70th birthday Michael Harding travelled to Spain and walked the Camino de Santiago.

    Yet, as he set off on his pilgrimage, he found he wasn’t alone. Accompanying him on his 126-kilometre walk in theheat of the Spanish sun was the ghost of his long-dead father, a distant and aloof figure whom he lost when he was only twenty-two years old. Here, with searing honesty and beautifully wrought prose, Harding examines how this man, who had diedalmost half a century ago, could have had such a profound effect on the writer’s life.

  • Powered to Fall, Empowered to Rise

    Powered to Fall, Empowered to Rise

    10.00

    About the Book

    I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at the age of 30. At the same time I was looking to start a new life in Australia and had just met Des (my fiancé) while working at an Irish bar.

    Des stood by me through this illness and supported me in ways I could have never imagined with his love. After having to cancel our wedding in 2018 and give up work, we finally found our happy place in 2020.

    The love that Des showed me during this time and the illness inspired me to write a book so that I could help others who are also going through a difficult time. The book writes about the lessons I learnt in my own life on health, wealth, love and happiness.

    It is my hope that in sharing lessons from my own life that it will help others and inspire others that love will always shine through no matter how dark our days are. This book has been written from my heart to yours.

  • Overcoming A Memoir

    Overcoming A Memoir

    10.95
    Description
    Sunday Times Memoir of the Year 2019An Post Irish Book of the Year 2019When Vicky Phelan delivered an emotionally charged statement from the steps of the Four Courts in April 2018 – having refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the settlement of her action against the HSE – she unearthed the medical and political scandal of our times. It would emerge that, like Vicky, 220 other women who were diagnosed with cervical cancer were not informed that a clinical audit -carried out by the national screen programme CervicalCheck – had revised their earlier, negative smear tests. Their cancers could possibly have been preventable.

    Since then, Vicky has become women’s voice for justice on the issue, and her system-changing activism has made her a household name. In her memoir Overcoming, Vicky shares her remarkable personal story, from a life-threatening accident in early adulthood through to motherhood, a battle with depression, her devastating later discovery that her cancer had returned in shocking circumstances – and the ensuing detective-like scrutiny of events that led the charge for her history-making legal action. An inspiring story of rare resilience and power, Overcoming is an account of how one woman can move mountains – even when she is fighting for her own life – and of finding happiness and strength in the toughest of times.

    ‘Calls to mind the work of Emilie Pine, or the memoir by Maggie O’Farrell, I Am, I Am, I Am … Overcoming is more than the retelling of an extraordinary life. Its pacing and gentleness leaves plenty of room for tears and for reflection’ Irish Independent

  • The Irish Diaspora

    The Irish Diaspora

    12.00
    Description
    The Irish have always been a travelling people. In the centuries after the fall of Rome, Irish missionaries carried the word of Christianity throughout Europe, while soldiers and mariners from across the land ventured overseas in all directions. Since 1800 an estimated 10 million people have left the Irish shores and today more than 80 million people worldwide claim Irish descent.

    The advent of the British Empire ignited a slow but extraordinary exodus from Ireland. The pioneering explorers of the Tudor Age were soon overtaken in number by religious refugees, the ‘Wild Geese’ who opted to live outside of the Protestant state and to take their chances in the Spanish or French empires, or in America. The Irish played a pivotal role in the foundation of the United States of America, just as they would in the Civil War that followed eighty-five years later.

    The lives of Irish emigrants wove in and out of the major events of global history, including the Abbe Edgeworth, confessor to King Louis XVI at his execution during the French Revolution; Margaretta Eagar, governess to the daughters of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia; and William Lamport, who travelled from County Wexford to Central America, and became Don Guillen, a martyr for Mexican independence. Turtle Bunbury explores the lives of those men and women, great and otherwise, whose journeys – whether driven by faith, a desire for riches and adventure, or purely for survival – have left their mark on the world.

  • The Boy Who Started Celtic

    The Boy Who Started Celtic

    12.00

    THIS BOOK is the story of a boy, a calf and one of
    the biggest football clubs in the world.
    It is also a story of how one person can change
    many people’s lives.
    All great journeys begin with a single step. As a
    boy, Brother Walfrid did not know he was starting
    a great journey when he sold a calf at County
    Sligo’s Ballymote Fair and took the boat to
    Scotland.
    Every day, people are starting great journeys and
    they don’t even know it. They are just trying, like
    Walfrid, to make people’s lives better by helping
    others who are not as fortunate as them. Walfrid
    helped people and started one of the world’s most
    well-known football clubs.
    Perhaps readers of Brother Walfrid’s story may
    start a great journey of their own one day?

  • The Lamplighters of the Phoenix Park

    The Lamplighters of the Phoenix Park

    12.00

    The Phoenix Park in Dublin holds a special place in the collective memory of Irish people. From the assassinations of 1882 and the destruction of several imperial monuments, to the arrival of Douglas Hyde as Ireland’s first president and Pope John Paul’s 1979 visit, it has been at the centre of Irish society for centuries. But the park is also part and parcel of daily life for many Dubliners – none more so than the Flanagan family, who have been lighting the gas lamps within its walls since 1890.

    Here, historian Donal Fallon speaks to brothers Frank and James Flanagan, lamplighters of the park, to give us a snapshot of a fading tradition, and a unique history of one of Ireland’s most beloved places. With stunning photographs, historical events and personal stories, The Lamplighters of the Phoenix Park shines a light on the park at the centre of our national identity, through the prism of this singular family, whose histories have been intertwined for more than 150 years.