Biography / Memoir

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Standing In Gaps
€20.00
‘Standing in Gaps’ Seamus O’Rourke – A Memoir

From far away Leitrim looks small and our lives insignificant. Not enough there to fill out the pages of a fairly thick book. Well come closer, and I’ll show you. And remember … it’s not a memory test. Who cares what I can remember. I just want to tell about the misery and the fun we had. It was all around me. In the fields and the houses. In the people and the time. This was my time. And what a time it was, if you had nothing better to be at.

‘The comedy and calamity of growing up in Leitrim’

Seamus O’Rourke is an award-winning writer, director and actor from County Leitrim. He tours Ireland regularly with his own self-penned shows. Seamus has over two million hits on YouTube and Social Media with his collection of short stories, recitations and sketches.

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A Promised Land
€24.95
Description :
A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making-from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy. In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency-a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office. Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S.

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Greenlights
€17.50
Description

From the Academy Award (R)-winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction. I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud.

How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun.

How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man.

How to have meaning in life. How to be more me. Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries.

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Mr. Attention To Detail
€12.95
KELLY, JOE

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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?

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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.

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In the Shadow of Benbulben
€19.95
Description

In January 1939, just months after hanging up his boots and a few weeks into his new career as a talent scout, William Ralph ‘Dixie’ Dean, the former Everton and England legend, received a surprise request for assistance from the far west of Ireland. Could he find a goalscorer for Sligo Rovers – the beating heart of a small, provincial town – to drive their dreams of a lucrative cup run and help protect the club’s very existence? Dean set about finding the right man, but unable to locate candidates willing to make the move across the Irish Sea, he had an idea. What if he were to answer Sligo’s call? And so began the unlikely story of how one of the greatest centre-forwards ever to grace the game added an unexpected and ultimately uplifting chapter to his storied football career.

In the Shadow of Benbulben is a romantic tale of divine intervention, uncanny timing and drama on and off the pitch. It’s the tale of ‘Dixie’ Dean’s four months with the Bit O’Red that was to leave an indelible mark on the player, the club and the town.

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The Choice
€14.50
Description

THE AWARD-WINNING SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEREven in hell, hope can flower’I’ll be forever changed by her story’ – Oprah Winfrey’Extraordinary … will stick with you long after you read it’ – Bill Gates’One of those rare and eternal stories you don’t want to end’ – Desmond Tutu’A masterpiece of holocaust literature. Her memoir, like her life, is extraordinary, harrowing and inspiring in equal measure’ – The Times Literary Supplement’I can’t imagine a more important message for modern times.

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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.

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Constellations
€13.50
Description

*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, author of A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing. 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.

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Untamed
€17.50
Description

‘This book will shake your brain and make your soul scream. I am so ready for myself after reading this book!’ Adele’Untamed will liberate women – emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It is phenomenal.’ Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls and Eat Pray LoveWho were you before the world told you who to be? Part inspiration, part memoir, Untamed explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world, and instead dare to listen to and trust in the voice deep inside us.

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Leaning On Gates
€18.00
O’ROURKE, SEAMUS

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The Lyrics
€75.00
A self-portrait in 154 songs, by our greatest living songwriter’More often than I can count, I’ve been asked if I would write an autobiography, but the time has never been right. The one thing I’ve always managed to do, whether at home or on the road, is to write new songs. I know that some people, when they get to a certain age, like to go to a diary to recall day-to-day events from the past, but I have no such notebooks.

What I do have are my songs, hundreds of them, which I’ve learned serve much the same purpose. And these songs span my entire life.’ In this extraordinary book, with unparalleled candour, Paul McCartney recounts his life and art through the prism of 154 songs from all stages of his career – from his earliest boyhood compositions through the legendary decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his solo albums to the present. Arranged alphabetically to provide a kaleidoscopic rather than chronological account, it establishes definitive texts of the songs’ lyrics for the first time and describes the circumstances in which they were written, the people and places that inspired them, and what he thinks of them now.

Presented with this is a treasure trove of material from McCartney’s personal archive – drafts, letters, photographs – never seen before, which make this also a unique visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time. We learn intimately about the man, the creative process, the working out of melodies, the moments of inspiration. The voice and personality of Paul McCartney sings off every page.

There has never been a book about a great musician like it. Each volume is 480 pp, not available separately

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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.

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A Life Among The Dead
€12.00
MCGOWAN, DAVID

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In My Own Words
€24.95
Born in Sligo into a family of travelling entertainers, Sandy Kelly has become one of the top musical performers in Ireland. Sandy was co-opted into the family variety show from an early age. As a teenager she sang on the social club circuit in the UK, playing an ever more prominent role.

When she returned to Ireland, she developed initially as a pop performer before following her instincts and concentrating on a music career. Her landmark 1989 recording of the Patsy Cline hit ‘Crazy’ led her to perform on stages all over the world, including the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and the lead role in Patsy – The Musical in London’s West End. But the music industry can be a tough place.

Sandy has dealt with prejudice and financial pressures. Alongside the glamour of show business, she has experienced the heartaches of divorce, family illness and death, and faced the challenges of raising a daughter with special needs. Sandy has stood strong at the heart of Ireland’s music scene for over four decades.

Here, for the first time, she recounts the highs – and lows – of a lifetime in music, in her own words.

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