Non Fiction

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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.

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From Malin Head to Mizen Head
€22.95
The Sea Area Forecast is broadcast daily on RTE radio at 6 a.m. and midnight. Foretelling fair days or fierce storms coming in across our seas, it has become a national institution – its hypnotic, rhythmic language as reassuring as the Angelus.

Acting as a gentle morning wake-up call and a soothing bedtime lullaby, it transports us to faraway places and describes weather patterns we can’t comprehend. From Mizen Head to Malin, Valentia to Loop Head, and Carlingford Lough to Hook Head – rising or falling slowly, backing south-east to north-east or veering south-to-south-west – it has a unique language all of its own, but what does it all mean? Here, meteorologist Joanna Donnelly takes readers on a journey around Ireland’s Sea Area Forecast, visiting the places that are a familiar part of the daily broadcast and explaining its unique history, language and science.

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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.

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Emperor of Rome
€34.00
A NEW WAY OF SEEING THE ROMAN EMPIRE

What was it really like to rule and be ruled in the Ancient Roman world? In her international best-seller SPQR, Mary Beard told the thousand-year story of ancient Rome.

Now, she shines her spotlight on the emperors who ruled the Roman empire, from Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BCE) to Alexander Severus (assassinated 235 CE). Emperor of Rome is not your usual chronological account of Roman rulers, one after another: the mad Caligula, the monster Nero, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Beard asks bigger questions: What power did emperors actually have? Was the Roman palace really so bloodstained? Emperor of Rome goes directly to the heart of Roman (and our own) fantasies about what it was to be Roman, offering an account of Roman history as it has never been presented before.

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The Book You Want Everyone You Love to Read
€19.95
Life is all about relationships and the quality of those connections, whether that’s with family, partners, friends, colleagues or most importantly yourself. If you can get those relationships on a functional and even keel, then the other tricky stuff that life throws your way becomes easier to manage.

In this warm, practical and witty book, No.1 Sunday Times bestselling psychotherapist Philippa Perry shows you how to approach life’s big problems.

How do you find and keep love? What can you do to manage conflict better? How can you get unstuck and cope with change and loss? What does it mean to you to be content? Are other people just annoying or are you the problem?

With a healthy dose of sanity, Philippa Perry’s compassionate advice could help you become a happier, wiser person.

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Oh Miriam!
€19.95
Join us on another unforgettable adventure through the extraordinary life and strong opinions of Miriam Margolyes.

‘My new book is called OH MIRIAM! – something that has been said to me a lot over the years, often in tones of strong disapproval. It contains lots more revelations and stories and discoveries and I can’t wait to share it with you all!’

From being escorted off the Today programme (for saying what we were all thinking) to declaring her love to Vanessa Redgrave; from Tales of the Unexpected to Graham Norton’s sofa, she is the UK’s most loved and most outspoken national treasure. Oh Miriam! takes you inside both her head and her heart.

Buckle up for the most irrepressible, hilarious and moving read of 2023

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The Dictionary People
€17.50
The Oxford English Dictionary has long been associated with elite institutions and Victorian men; its longest-serving editor, James Murray, devoted 36 years to the project, as far as the letter T. But the Dictionary didn’t just belong to the experts; it relied on contributions from members of the public. By the time it was finished in 1928 its 414,825 entries had been crowdsourced from a surprising and diverse group of people, from archaeologists and astronomers to murderers, naturists, novelists, pornographers, queer couples, suffragists, vicars and vegetarians.

Lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie dives deep into previously untapped archives to tell a people’s history of the OED.

She traces the lives of thousands of contributors who defined the English language, from the eccentric autodidacts to the family groups who made word-collection their passion. With generosity and brio, Ogilvie reveals, for the first time, the full story of the making of one of the most famous books in the world – and celebrates to sparkling effect the extraordinary efforts of the Dictionary People.

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Burning Questions
€15.95
From cultural icon Margaret Atwood comes a brilliant collection of essays — funny, erudite, endlessly curious, uncannily prescient — which seek answers to Burning Questions such as: Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories?How can we live on our planet?What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism?In Burning Questions Atwood aims her prodigious intellect and impish humour at our world, and reports back to us on what she finds. The roller-coaster period covered in the collection brought an end to the end of history, a financial crash, the rise of Trump and a pandemic. From debt to tech, the climate crisis to freedom; from when to dispense advice to the young (answer: only when asked) to how to define granola, we have no better questioner of the many and varied mysteries of our human universe.

INCLUDES NEW ESSAYS FOR PAPERBACK

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All Down Darkness Wide
€13.50
When Sean meets Elias, the two fall headlong into a love story. But as Elias struggles with severe depression, the couple comes face to face with crisis.

Wrestling with this, Sean Hewitt delves deep into his own history, enlisting the ghosts of queer figures and poets before him. From a nineteenth-century cemetery in Liverpool to the pine forests of Gothenburg, Hewitt plumbs the darkness in search of solace and hope. All Down Darkness Wide is a mesmerising story of heartache and renewal, and a fearless exploration of a world that too often sets happiness and queer life at odds.

WINNER OF THE ROONEY PRIZE FOR IRISH LITERATURE 2022

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Tinseltown
€17.50
The remarkable inside story of how two Hollywood A-listers, Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, stunned the football world by buying a non-league club in North Wales. It was one of the most extraordinary takeovers British football has known. In February 2021, Ryan Reynolds joined with Rob McElhenney to buy Wrexham AFC, a non-league team in North Wales.

Wrexham, a former coal and steel town dealing with its post-industrial legacy, suddenly found itself at the centre of global attention, with broadcast networks around the world descending to discover what was going on. The club became the subject of a smash hit Disney+ docu-series, Welcome to Wrexham. Tinseltown tells the story of this extraordinary, unpredictable and often surreal football takeover and the remarkable events that followed.

Written with the full cooperation of Wrexham AFC, it is the inside story of what happened when Hollywood met a dot on a map. How a town was transformed when its football club, aspiring only to survive on the fifth rung of the British football ladder, was sprinkled with gold dust and found ambition again. With unique access to players, the manager and the club’s executives, the book charts the club’s attempts to climb up the pyramid, providing a vivid sense of what it is like to play for this ‘Hollywood’ team and the pressure and spotlight that comes with it.

At their only press conference since buying the club, nobody laughed when Reynolds and McElhenney said the Premier League could be an aspiration. ‘Couldn’t we theoretically make this happen?’ McElhenney asked. ‘Why not dream big?’ added Reynolds. ‘If you don’t dream big, you will never go there, so why not?’

Tinseltown is the story of how they did just that.

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Revolution
€17.50
The inside story of Mikel Arteta’s astonishing transformation of ArsenalNovember 2019. Unai Emery’s final game as Arsenal manager sees the Gunners languishing eighth in the league. Appointed in the dying embers of the Wenger years, Emery’s 18 months as Arsenal boss has seen the team and the club go backwards – playing unimaginative, pragmatic football, and recently losing to London rivals Chelsea in the final of the Europa League.

Something had to change; a fresh head with fresh ideas. A new leader.This is the story of how Mikel Arteta turned Arsenal into one of the most exciting, innovative and feared teams in the league. From cutting his teeth as an assistant under Pep Guardiola before joining Arsenal in the winter of 2019, through to title contenders years later – including bust-ups, Covid, disappointments, FA Cup wins, fan revolt, and eventually the rise of an extraordinary young team standing on the edge of greatness – this book will be the first of its kind to explore the workings of Arteta’s philosophy and how he transformed the club from outsiders to title challengers.With chapters on his tactical innovations, in-game strategies, transfer insight and, of course, an account of the memorable 2022-23 season – Revolution is the story of an extraordinary football ascent and the first draft of Arsenal’s new history.

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The Gilligan Tapes
€17.95
‘I DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD, BUT I KNOW I’M GOING TO HELL.’

In this remarkable book – the first of its kind – journalist Jason O’Toole distils hours of sensational face-to-face, no-holds-barred interviews with the feared criminal John Gilligan into a fast-paced and jaw-dropping account of the Irish gangland scene.

Starting out as a petty thief in Dublin, Gilligan rapidly rose to the status of crime lord, mixing with serious criminals such as Martin ‘The General’ Cahill, Christy ‘The Dapper Don’ Kinahan, Patrick ‘Dutchy’ Holland and John ‘The Coach’ Traynor. He was deeply involved with money laundering, miraculously survived an assassination attempt, and it is said he has millions stashed away at a secret location. O’Toole demands answers to all the hard questions; some of Gilligan’s responses will make readers shiver.

Gilligan knew that laying all his cards on the table could mean signing his own death warrant. But he has done it here. And with a cast of all the country’s deadliest underworld figures, this exposé is nothing short of explosive.

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A Portrait of the Piss Artist as a Young Man
€14.95
It was love at first taste for fifteen-year old Tadhg Hickey when he drank a can of Scrumpy Jack on the night of his exam results. Straight away it provided a cure for that constant feeling of ‘something wrong, something not quite right’, a way of numbing anxiety and childhood trauma. He realised he was extraordinarily good at drinking and energetically threw himself into a life of pubs, parties and staying pissed, while also managing to become a comedian. But alcohol had the last laugh …

A Portrait of the Piss Artist as a Young Man shows us the often-hilarious lengths of self-deception an alcoholic will go to, the horrific consequences of addiction and the redemptive process of recovering from this deadly but ultimately treatable illness, and remaining sober. A deeply touching memoir and with a side of self-help, Tadhg’s easy-going writing style belies his serious message – that each of us has the power to change our lives.

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This Is My Sea
€17.50
Over the course of seven difficult years Miriam Mulcahy lost her mother, father and sister, each grief threatening to drown her. But instead of going under she discovered the lessons of the sea, letting the water teach her how to get through anything in life: one breath builds on another, another stroke, another kick and you will get home. THIS IS MY SEA takes our greatest fear, death, and wraps it up in language so fine and beautiful that the reader is carried along and comforted by how completely lost Miriam was and how she found solace in all the things that sustained her: books, music, art, friends, love, swimming, and of course the sea.

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Poor
€16.50
As the middle of five kids growing up in dire poverty, the odds were low on Katriona O’Sullivan making anything of her life. When she became a mother at 15 and ended up homeless, what followed were five years of barely coping.

This is the extraordinary story – moving, funny, brave, and sometimes startling – of how Katriona turned her life around. How the seeds of self-belief planted by teachers in childhood stayed with her. How she found mentors whose encouragement revived those seeds in adulthood.

Katriona is now an award-winning lecturer whose work challenges barriers to education. Poor is her stirring argument for the importance of looking out for our kids’ futures. Of giving them hope, practical support and meaningful opportunities.

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Cures of Ireland
€22.95
A fascinating new book celebrating Ireland’s rich tradition of folk cures, medicines and charms.

It’s said that almost everyone in Ireland, particularly in rural communities, will know of someone with a ‘cure’. It might be for the mumps, a stye in the eye, or a sprain. Indeed the author of Cures of Ireland, Cecily Gilligan was herself cured of jaundice and ringworm by a ‘seventh son’ in her local Sligo during her childhood.

Cecily Gilligan has been researching the rich world of Irish folk cures for almost forty years and, given the tradition has largely been an oral one, has been interviewing a broad range of people from around the country who possess these mystical cures, and those who have benefited from their gifts. One has a cure for eczema that comprises herbal butter balls, another ‘buys’ warts from the sufferer with safety pins. There are stories of clay from graves with precious healing properties and pieces of cords from potato bags being sent across the world to treat asthma.

While the Ireland of the twenty-first century continues to develop at lightning speed, there is something deeply comforting and reassuring in the fact that these ancient healing traditions, while fewer in number, do survive to this day.

Cures of Ireland is an exquisite book that will be treasured by many generations to come.

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