Biography / Memoir

  • Mother Mary Comes To Me

    Mother Mary Comes To Me

    19.95

    The incredible first memoir from the Booker-winning radical icon Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small ThingsTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERFOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025AUDIBLE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025BLACKWELL’S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025WINNER OF THE GOOGLE PLAY BEST OF 2025 AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2026SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMENS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 2026Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, this is a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her relationship to her extraordinary, singular mother Mary, who she describes as ‘my shelter and my storm’. Distraught and even a “little ashamed” at the intensity of her response to the death of the mother she ran from at age eighteen, Arundhati began to write Mother Mary Comes to Me. The result is this astonishing, disconcerting, surprisingly funny chronicle—unique and simultaneously universal, of the author’s life, from childhood to the present, from Kerala to Delhi.

    With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other. 2025 BOOK OF THE YEAR ACCORDING TO NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, TIME, INDEPENDENT, FINANCIAL TIMES, ECONOMIST, OBSERVER

  • Charlie Vs Garrett

    Charlie Vs Garrett

    26.95
    Description
    SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2025’The best book about Irish politics you can read … O’Malley has produced one of the finest books ever written about modern Irish politics’ – William Stephens, Gript’A rattling good read’ – David McCullagh, RTÉ’A fantastic read’ – Hugh Linehan, Irish TimesThe two opposing political figures that shaped Irish life in the 1980s and beyond. In the 1980s, Irish politics was dominated by a fierce rivalry between Charles J.

    Haughey and Dr Garret FitzGerald, both leaders of their respective parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Between them they each led all Irish governments in that decade; to say their two opposing personalities shaped Irish life during this era is an understatement. Eoin O’Malley has amassed an extraordinary body of research, including in-depth interviews with dozens of the most consequential public figures of the time, every Taoiseach, cabinet ministers, TDs, civil servants, and advisers.

    As political rivals with different approaches to public life and contrasting visions for Ireland, each enshrined in quite different personalities, the choice between Haughey and FitzGerald came to signify a great deal more than party loyalty or policy preference: it felt like a choice between opposing worldviews. And, as O’Malley’s work finally makes clear through an accumulation of extraordinary insights, including interviews with Haughey and FitzGerald themselves, it was fed by a deep reservoir of personal insecurity and paranoia. Each was deeply preoccupied – obsessed even – with the strengths, appeal and threats of the other, to the extent that this rivalry itself became one of the decisive factors in Irish life that shaped Ireland well after they had left power.

  • The Dodger

    The Dodger

    19.95

    There was a time when DJ Carey didn’t need a surname. The star player of a Kilkenny hurling team that dominated the sport for a decade, he had a rare, natural talent that led his county to five All Ireland titles and won him nine All Stars. DJ wasn’t just a hero on the pitch – his easy charm, generosity, and readiness to meet young fans made him a national treasure. Throughout his meteoric rise, strange rumours followed him. In 2003, shocking claims that DJ was dying of cancer swept the country. Who would spread such a story about one of Ireland’s most beloved sporting legends? And what could possibly be gained from it? Two decades later, the truth emerged. DJ Carey was arrested and charged with deception and forgery – accused of faking cancer to con money from those who trusted him most. For years, he had been telling the same lie to generous supporters who believed they were funding life-saving treatment in the U.S. In this riveting exposé, Eimear Ní Bhraonáin uncovers the extraordinary fall from grace of a national icon, and how he betrayed the fans that once loved him.

  • Nobody's Girl

    Nobody’s Girl

    27.95
    Description
    The book no-one should have to write but we all have to read. ‘If books can shape history, this is one.’ DAILY MAIL‘Both devastating and uplifting … fearless and frank – angry and empowering. It speaks to the thousands of other victims out there about how to start fighting back.’ EMILY MAITLISThis is the extraordinarily powerful memoir by the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the inspirational woman who stood up and spoke out about serial abusers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and how they trafficked her, and others, to some of the world’s richest, most powerful men.

    ‘Make no mistake: this is a book about power, corruption, industrial-scale sex abuse and the way in which institutions sided with the perpetrator over his victims. . .

    . But it is also a book about how a young woman becomes a hero. .

    . . Important [and] courageous.’ GUARDIANThis is Virginia’s story, in her own words.

  • Great Irish Wives

    Great Irish Wives

    19.95
    Description
    Throughout history, the stories of women’s lives and work have been overshadowed by those of men. Wives, especially, disappear, unacknowledged as patrons and champions of their husband’s work, as collaborators, muses, carers and managers of the family domain. Great Irish Wives shines a spotlight on ten such wives: Matilda Tone, Mary O’Connell, Constance Wilde, Charlotte Shaw, Emily Shackleton, Annette Carson, Sinéad de Valera, Margaret Clarke, George Yeats and Beatrice Behan.

    The men in this book are household names, from Wolfe Tone and Daniel O’Connell to Oscar Wilde and BrendanBehan, and they all have one thing in common: they married women who enabled them to pursue their dreams,even if that meant courting death or outrage. Nicola Pierce tells the stories of these truly remarkable women

  • Speaking My Mind

    Speaking My Mind

    25.95

    Leo Varadkar shares his fascinating experience as Irish prime minister at a time of much change and turbulence, in this remarkably honest memoir. Leo Varadkar was an unlikely Taoiseach – the youngest on taking office in 2017, the first Taoiseach to be gay, and the first person of colour to be Taoiseach. Equally unlikely was his decision to bow out of politics in his mid-forties.

    Now, liberated from the constraints of office, he tells his fascinating story with characteristic courage and candour, and provides a unique insight into the formation and evolution of a senior politician. In Speaking My Mind Leo Varadkar shares his pride in helping to bring about transformational changes, such as marriage equality. He describes experiences that only a prime minister could have – speaking frankly to Pope Francis on the legacy of church abuses, connecting with Barack Obama about both being the ‘tall, dark guy with the funny name’, navigating challenges such as the pandemic and the fallout from Brexit.

    And he writes honestly about the costs that go with the immense privilege of holding high office. Speaking My Mind is a revealing, intimate and important memoir from a singular public figure.

  • Beidh Tu Alright

    Beidh Tu Alright

    19.95

    Beidh Tú Alright is a powerful nod to the resilience of the human spirit, the importance of cultural heritage, and the joy of lifelong learning. McHugh’s personal story will inspire both those who have yet to start their Irish language journey and those who may have once given up.

  • Obsessed-The Autobiography

    Obsessed-The Autobiography

    24.95
    Description
    THE NO. 1 BESTSELLERIn his hotly anticipated autobiography, Johnny Sexton tells the story of his life and explores the sources of his unmatched will to win. ‘Sexton will go down as Ireland’s greatest ever player’ Gordon D’Arcy, Irish Times___________________Four European Cups.

    Four Six Nations championships (including two Grand Slams). A series win in New Zealand. Two stints for Ireland at number 1 in the world.

    And the World Player of the Year award. No Irish rugby player has ever achieved more, or been a source of more inspiration to teammates and fans alike, than Johnny Sexton. Outspoken, on and off the field, Sexton offers an honest look at his childhood, his relationships with key teammates and coaches (including Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell, Ronan O’Gara, Joe Schmidt and Andy Farrell), and his ideas about the game.

  • This Boy's Heart

    This Boy’s Heart

    22.95
    Description
    John Creedon is a renowned storyteller. Following on from the sensational success of An Irish Folklore Treasury, here he seeks to capture the folklore of his own childhood. This Boy’s Heart is set in a city-centre household bursting with humanity, with a cast of a dozen children and another dozen adults, including beloved aunts, an American writer, an African doctor and a Scottish bookie.
  • Leaning On Gates

    Leaning On Gates

    18.00

    O’ROURKE, SEAMUS

  • 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.

  • A Life Among The Dead

    A Life Among The Dead

    12.00

    MCGOWAN, DAVID

  • Poor

    Poor

    13.95
    Description
    The No. 1 BestsellerBiography of the Year, Irish Book Awards 2023The Last Word Listeners’ Choice Award, Irish Book Awards 2023’One of the best [books] I have read about the complexities of poverty . .

    . one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet’ GuardianLike young girls everywhere Katriona O’Sullivan grew up bright, enthusiastic, curious. But she was also surrounded by abject poverty and chaos, and after she became pregnant and homeless at 15, what followed was five years of barely surviving.

    Yet today Katriona is an award-winning academic whose work explores barriers to education for girls like her. What set Katriona on this unexpected path were the mentors and supporters who truly saw her. The teachers who showed her how to wash in the school toilets or turned up at her door to convince her to sit at least one GCSE.

  • Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother's Secrets

    Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother’s Secrets

    23.95

    WILLS, CLAIR

  • Keira and Me

    Keira and Me

    22.50

    Let national treasure Professor Noel Fitzpatrick – the Supervet – break your heart and put it back together again in this beautiful new Christmas story. ‘With you by my side, just doing my best was the best thing to do.’

    Keira is an extraordinary dog. She held the key to Noel’s heart from the moment he first met her.

    That’s because Keira doesn’t judge. When Noel struggles, Keira is there to remind him he need only do his best. When he sees only darkness, Keira is ready to lift him back into the light.

    Keira & Me is the real-life story of Supervet Noel Fitzpatrick, his companion Keira and their life together. It captures the incredible bond of unconditional love between us and our canine friends. Inspiring and healing in equal measure, this beautifully illustrated and deeply heartfelt story of Noel and Keira’s journey together teaches us all how to embrace the ups with the downs, the joy and the sorrow, the darkness and the light, that make up a life.

    For animal lovers everywhere, or anyone who needs a little comfort this Christmas, Keira & Me promises to break your heart and put it back together again – even better than it was before.

  • Madhouse

    Madhouse

    19.95

    I grew up in a psychiatric experiment crossed with an alcoholic experiment . . . a place run by two people who were extraordinarily drunk and guarded by a potentially vicious dog with a brain tumour.

    PJ Gallagher spent much of his childhood knocking back Lucozade with the local alcoholics in his parents’ northside pub. But the chaos that reigned for his first ten years was nothing compared to what happened when – having lost the pub – his mum took in six psychiatric patients from the local hospital to give them ‘care in the community’.

    Worst. Idea. Ever.

    Madhouse is PJ’s riotous life story. Covering everything from dogs, motorbikes and the art of small talk, to the lessons of mental breakdown and finally figuring out love, this is PJ unbound. Most surprising – to PJ more than anyone – is the prospect of becoming a dad in his late forties, when he always thought of ‘family’ as a trap.

    Madhouse is the funny, insightful and moving story of someone just trying to keep his head above water – and how he is making sense of it all at last!