Biography / Memoir

  • 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.

  • 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

  • Standing In Gaps

    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.

     

  • Strangers

    Strangers

    20.95
    Description

    A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 IN VOGUE, BBC, NEW YORK TIMES, W MAGAZINE, TOWN & COUNTRY

    ‘A beautifully written eulogy for the loss of a relationship’ Joyce Carol Oates

    ‘Beautiful… devastating … Strangers reads with all the momentum and colour of water-tight literary fiction’ British Vogue

    How do we go on when a loved one betrays us?

    On a chilly day in March of 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, Belle Burden s husband of twenty years announced, with no prior warning, that he was leaving her.

    His decision shocked Belle to her core: she believed he was a happy man, a committed partner, and a devoted father to their three children. She thought he was a man who had settled into the life he had always wanted: a successful career, summers spent at their beloved home on Martha s Vineyard, lots of tennis. Overnight, he transformed from her steady companion into a stranger.

    As she pieces her life together in the wake of a loss she had never imagined coming, she finds she is much stronger than she ever expected.

    Exploring the transformation of a shy, quiet girl, nicknamed Belle the Good to a powerful, brave, determined woman who has learned to use her voice to expose the patriarchal structures that have forced women to be discreet and compliant for far too long, Strangers is a must-read memoir of self-discovery.

  • Devotion

    Devotion

    21.95

    A moving and lyrical memoir about life, love and loss, from a true giant of Gaelic games. In a frenetic seven-year spell at the outset of his senior managerial career, Mickey Harte led Tyrone to four Ulster Championships and three All-Irelands.

    It was a run that shifted football’s balance of power, changed the way the game would be played for over a generation, and cemented his reputation as one of the most transformative figures in GAA history. Then, in January 2011, the visitation of a shocking tragedy changed everything: Mickey’s daughter Michaela was murdered while on honeymoon in Mauritius, and the Harte family, grief-stricken, awoke to find themselves at the centre of an international news story. Devotion, the product of a collaboration between Mickey and author Brendan Coffey, is many things.

    The story of a family’s decade-long struggle to come to terms with an almost unimaginable loss. A meditation on the ways in which faith, community, and sport can sustain us in our most difficult moments. And, finally, a portrait of one of Irish sport’s true icons, as he brings one legendary era to a close and steels himself for a final assault on the history books.

    9780008473037

  • Fight or Flight

    Fight or Flight

    21.95

    Keith Earls started out in senior rugby as a teenage star and during the course of his long career has become one of the most admired and respected players of his generation. A British & Irish Lion at the age of 21, he is now closing in on his 34th birthday and still playing at the top of his game. He has won 93 caps for Ireland and played 179 times in the famous red of Munster.

    He started every game of the 2018 Six Nations campaign that culminated in an Irish Grand Slam victory. A lethal finisher blessed with thoroughbred speed, Earls is the second-highest try scorer of all time for his country. With Munster he is one try short of the all-time total and looks set to break that record next season.

    Behind the glittering success, there is another story to be told. He has achieved these milestones whilst being racked by private battles with his mental health for most of his career. A number of crises brought him to the brink of voluntary retirement from the game.

    A long series of injuries have taken their psychological toll too. A native of Limerick city, Earls grew up in one of its most socially disadvantaged housing estates. Moyross was blighted by crime and violence and he did not escape unscathed from the surrounding fear and trauma visited upon his beloved community.

    His natural sporting talent brought him into the privileged bastion of elite rugby union. His frank and fearless autobiography tells the story of his long struggle to reconcile the world whence he came with the world opened up by his brilliance with an oval ball. Earls has maintained a low profile throughout his career.

    For the first time he will talk in depth and at length about the inner turmoil that went unseen by team-mates, friends and fans. It is a confessional, intimate and courageous story of the pain that was a constant companion to the glory.

    9781914197093

  • An Irish Atlantic Rainforest

    An Irish Atlantic Rainforest

    21.95
    Description
    On the Beara peninsula in West Cork, a temperate rainforest flourishes. It is the life work of Eoghan Daltun, who had a vision to rewild a 73-acre farm he bought, moving there from Dublin with his family in 2009. An Irish Atlantic Rainforest charts that remarkable journey.

    Part memoir, part environmental treatise, as a wild forest bursts into life before our eyes, we’re invited to consider the burning issues of our time: climate breakdown, ecological collapse, and why our very survival as a species requires that we urgently and radically transform our relationship with nature. This is a story as much about doing nothing as taking action – allowing natural ecosystems to return and thrive without interference, and in doing so heal an ailing planet. Powerfully descriptive, lovingly told, An Irish Atlantic Rainforest presents an enduring picture of the regenerative force of nature, and how one Irishman let it happen.

  • The Rodfather

    The Rodfather

    21.95
    Description
    ‘What a life, what a book. I highly recommend it’ Tadhg Coakley, Irish Examiner_________The hilarious memoir from the funniest man in football!Roddy Collins is a football man – now in the sixth decade of a career as a player (at sixteen clubs), manager (twelve clubs) and commentator. And he is a funny man: an unequalled raconteur with a sharp eye for the absurdities of the professional game and spectacular recall.
  • My Greatest Race

    My Greatest Race

    21.95
    Description
    ‘A harrowing, heartbreaking and yet heartwarming story.’ MARY McALEESE‘We all know Ciara as a warrior on the athletics track. Now she faces the race of her life with the same grit and determination we have come to expect from her.’ SONIA O’SULLIVAN‘This book is devastatingly brilliant. Ciara’s life on the track has been world class and contrasting that with her cancer fight is compelling reading …

    I genuinely couldn’t stop reading.’ DERVAL O’ROURKE‘A raw account from the peak of athletic success to the devastating life-altering blow of cancer, Ciara’s journey is both powerful and unflinchingly honest – one that forces you to pause and reflect on what truly matters.’ DAVID GILLICK‘An honest, raw, and heartbreaking account of what it takes to fulfil your dreams and endure the pain of having them taken away. Ciara Mageean is a national treasure.’ JACQUI HURLEYFew Irish track athletes are as universally loved as Ciara Mageean, who has remained endearingly down-to-earth, candid and optimistic despite the dramatic twists and turns of her world-class career. In 2024 she finally won a European title, crossing the line to secure that gold medal in a moment of pure euphoria.

  • 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.

  • 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.
  • Walfrid

    Walfrid

    23.95

    Andrew Kerins [Brother Walfrid] [1840 – 1915] was one of
    the most significant Irish immigrants to Scotland. He
    was an outstanding individual in relation to Catholic
    education and charity in Glasgow and a major
    contributor to the emergence of organised sport in
    Scotland in the late nineteenth century.
    He was but one individual, amongst countless thousands
    of victims, who survived the catastrophe of An Gorta Mor
    in Ireland, only to be forced to leave behind family,
    community and homeland in the hope of finding a
    better life overseas. Over one million others perished
    owing to the prevalence of starvation and disease during
    Ireland’s darkest period. Kerins left for Glasgow as a
    fifteen-year-old boy and the spectre of hunger,
    accompanied by a concern for the spiritual and physical
    well-being of others, are motifs which endured
    throughout his long and impactful life.

  • Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother's Secrets

    Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother’s Secrets

    23.95

    WILLS, CLAIR

  • A Promised Land

    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.

  • Renegades

    Renegades

    24.95

    Two long-time friends share an intimate and urgent conversation about life, music and their enduring love of America, with all its challenges and contradictions, in this stunningly-produced expansion of their ground-breaking Higher Ground podcast, featuring more than 350 photographs, exclusive bonus content, and never-before-seen archival material. Renegades: Born in the USA is a candid, revealing, and entertaining dialogue between President Barack Obama and legendary musician Bruce Springsteen that explores everything from their origin stories and career-defining moments to their country’s polarized politics and the growing distance between the American Dream and the American reality. Filled with full-colour photographs and rare archival material, it is a compelling and beautifully illustrated portrait of two outsiders-one Black and one white-looking for a way to connect their unconventional searches for meaning, identity, and community with the American story itself.

    Along the way, they reveal their passion for-and the occasional toll of-telling a bigger, truer story about America throughout their careers, and explore how their fractured country might begin to find its way back toward unity.

  • In My Own Words

    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.