Non Fiction

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Chasing Shadows
€19.95
Three very different men battle to control their destinies as they hurtle through the hall of mirrors of the global shadow economy.

Jack Kelly, a veteran US Drug Enforcement Administration agent, tasked with following a trail of dirty money across continents from a top-secret investigative unit based in Virginia.

Salvatore Pititto is an ambitious Mafia capo working on a vast cocaine shipment who becomes unexpectedly pulled into an arms-smuggling conspiracy.

Mustafa Badreddine is a ghost-like master terrorist wanted by governments across the world who has been secretly dispatched to Syria for his final mission.

Each man, born in radically different circumstances in the 1960s, is in his own way grappling with the powerful and unstoppable forces that shape the world around us; forces which topple governments, send refugees fleeing across borders, and put guns in the hands of mercenaries and militias. Each has devoted his whole life to an institution – the DEA, the Mafia and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah – and each will eventually be destroyed or betrayed by the thing they believe in the most.

Set during 2015 and 2016, as the global order began to implode under the pressures of the Syrian civil war and the European refugee crisis, CHASING SHADOWS looks back over the historical conflicts, events and personal histories that have shaped the lives of these three men. It’s a book that shows the betrayals, the disillusionment and the violence as Jack Kelly hunts down his targets.

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Talking Heads
€19.95
Our brains have distinct mechanisms for talking about thoughts, about memories, about feelings and about the future. In Praise of Talking will be about the neuroscience of how we talk about ourselves, how we disclose information, and how that activity is central to the bonds we make with each other. It draws on a wealth of the latest neurological research, some of which the author has conducted himself, on talking about ourselves to other people – how we do it and why we do it, and what our brains are up to while we do it.

We talk about ourselves so consistently and pervasively we are unaware how much talking about ourselves to others supports our intense social lives.

It is the currency underlying social transactions and social life, allowing us to build trust and rapport with others. In turn, building trust and rapport with others is at the core of our mental and social well-being. Conversation depends critically on having a richly-stocked autobiographical memory that we use not just in the service of remembering, but also in negotiating our position and status with others.

We talk about ourselves to change what other people think of us, feel about us, will do for us.

This novel way of thinking about talking turns our view of identity inside-out because our sense of identity arises out of what we think others think about us. We tell our stories to others, drawing on our fragile and fallible autobiographical memories, which are in turn shaped by the questions we are asked and the stories we want to tell about ourselves, and by what others tell us. And we do so to affect what others think about us – not simply to disclose ourselves to others.

And this is all in the service of social belonging: to the family, to tribes, to institutions, to cultures and subcultures, to nations, to those who profess the same ideals and stories that we do.

In Praise of Talking blends expertise and a scientific journey of discovery, leavened by Shane O’Mara’s warm tone and evangelical gift for transmitting the wonder of the brain to a wide readership.

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The World
€19.95
From the master storyteller and internationally bestselling author – the story of humanity from prehistory to the present day, told through the one thing all humans have in common: family. We begin with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago. From here, Montefiore takes us on an exhilarating epic journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims and Assads.

A rich cast of complex characters form the beating heart of the story. Some are well-known leaders, from Alexander the Great, Attila, Ivan the Terrible and Genghis Khan to Hitler, Thatcher, Obama, Putin and Zelensky. Some are creative, from Socrates, Michelangelo and Shakespeare to Newton, Mozart, Balzac, Freud, Bowie and Tim Berners-Lee.

Others are lesser-known: Hongwu, who began life as a beggar and founded the Ming dynasty; Kamehameha, conqueror of Hawaii; Zenobia, Arab empress who defied Rome; King Henry of Haiti; Lady Murasaki, first female novelist; Sayyida al-Hurra, Moroccan pirate-queen. Here are not just conquerors and queens but prophets, charlatans, actors, gangsters, artists, scientists, doctors, tycoons, lovers, wives, husbands and children. This is world history on the most grand and intimate scale – spanning centuries, continents and cultures, and linking grand themes of war, migration, plague, religion, medicine and technology to the people at the centre of the human drama.

As spellbinding as fiction, The World captures the story of humankind in all its joy, sorrow, romance, ingenuity and cruelty in a ground-breaking, single narrative that will forever shift the boundaries of what history can achieve.

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Teller of the Unexpected
€13.50
Brand-new biography of Roald Dahl, re-evaluating the received narrative surrounding the life of the much-loved author and creator of numerous iconic literary characters – from one of our finest contemporary biographers. Roald Dahl was one of the world’s greatest storytellers.

He considered his vocation to be as bold and exciting as an explorer’s and, in his writing for children, he was able to tap into a child’s viewpoint throughout his life. He crafted tales that were exotic in scenario, frequently invested with a moral, and filled with vibrant characters that endure in the public imagination to the present day.

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Life After Capitalism
€26.95
Author of national bestseller Life After Google and generation-defining Wealth and Poverty, venture capitalist, futurist, and pioneering thinker extraordinaire George Gilder pinpoints how the clash of creativity with power at the heart of economic systems leads to global cognitive dissonance and argues that the creation of the novel taps capitalism’s infinite promise and is humanity’s only path of escape from stagnation and tyranny. Gilder once more rocks the archetypes of modern information theory and economics with a paradigm-shifting salvo of sheer brilliance. The capitalist era is over-get ready for life after capitalism.

For more than two hundred years, capitalism spread wealth around the globe, bringing unprecedented prosperity and progress, liberating human potential. But something has gone terribly wrong in the world economy. Creativity and faith in the future-capitalism’s crucial ingredients-seem to have run out.

The elites think they can maintain a nation’s wealth by printing money and investing it in favored industries. Their trust in bureaucratic experts, their cautionary paranoia, and their delusional belief that they can “control” everything from the spread of a virus to the weather, are sucking the life out of the economy. Ordinary people, their freedoms restricted, their prospects dim, are losing their faith in their institutions.

Such misguided corporatism and pride, confusion and despair, are the result of a deep misunderstanding of capitalism itself. The bestselling futurist and venture capitalist George Gilder explains why economics is not an incentive system to be manipulated but an information system to be freed. Material resources are essentially as plentiful as the atoms of the universe.

What drives economic growth in a free market is our limitless human ingenuity and creativity. Prophetic, inspiring, and paradigm-shifting, Life after Capitalism is a once-in-a-generation classic.

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On the Night
€50.00
Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann – Musicians and Senior Ceili Band Winners 1951-2021

Philip Duffy is uniquely qualified to perform this invaluable task of chronicling the history of ceili bands. His own musical ability, his longstanding involvement in ceili bands, his vast experience of performance in Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann, and his deep understanding of the traditional music community at home and abroad all contribute to the depth and empathy of this book.

‘On the Night’ will be enjoyed by many different readers – the family member who wants to learn about their sibling or parent or relation who played with a band from the beginning; the local music enthusiast tracing the evolution of their favourite ceili band; the student of ethnomusicology intent on working out the origins and development of ceili music performance and competition; and the current ceili band members seeking to understand the heritage that has been handed down to them and who now play their own part in gifting this unique native art form on to the next generation.

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Bored of Lunch The Healthy Air Fryer Book
€18.95
Whether you’re an air fryer fanatic or new to these time- and money-saving appliances, hugely popular healthy-eating platform, Bored of Lunch, will revolutionise your cooking packed with recipes that are quick, healthy and completely delicious. Air fryers are becoming the go-to kitchen gadget for making super tasty fuss-free food. As a lower energy alternative to a conventional oven, air fryers are a cost efficient way to make all your favourite dishes and save on your household bill.

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The Spanish Armada
€12.50
A dramatic blow-by-blow account of the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English fleet – a tale of daring and disaster on the high seas by one of our best narrative historians. After the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558, Protestant England was beset by the hostile Catholic powers of Europe – not least Spain. In October 1585 King Philip II of Spain declared his intention to destroy Protestant England and began preparing invasion plans, leading to an intense intelligence war between the two countries, culminating in the dramatic sea battles of 1588.

Robert Hutchinson’s tautly written book is the first to examine this battle for intelligence, and uses everything from contemporary eye-witness accounts to papers held by the national archives in Spain and the UK to recount the dramatic battle that raged up the English Channel. Contrary to popular theory, the Armada was not defeated by superior English forces – in fact, Elizabeth I’s parsimony meant that her ships had no munitions left by the time the Armada had fought its way up to the south coast of England. In reality it was a combination of inclement weather and bad luck that landed the killer blow on the Spanish forces, and of the 125 Spanish ships that set sail against England, only 60 limped home – the rest sunk or wrecked with barely a shot fired.

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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.

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10-Year Record of BTS
€38.95
THE FIRST EVER OFFICIAL BOOK – Published in celebration of BTS’s 10th Anniversary, stories that go beyond what you already know about BTS, including unreleased photos, QR codes of videos, and all album information. After taking their first step into the world on June 13, 2013, BTS will celebrate the 10th anniversary of their debut in June 2023. They have risen to the peak as an iconic global artist and during this meaningful time, they look back on their footsteps in the first official book.

In doing so, BTS nurtures the power to build brighter days and they choose to take another step on a road that no one has gone before. BTS shares personal, behind-the-scenes stories of their journey so far through interviews and more than three years of in-depth coverage by Myeongseok Kang, who has written about K-pop and other Korean pop culture in various media. Presented chronologically in seven chapters from before the debut of BTS to the present, their vivid voices and opinions harmonize to tell a sincere, lively, and deep story.

In individual interviews that have been conducted without a camera or makeup, they illuminate their musical journey from multiple angles and discuss its significance. In addition, portrait photos that show BTS as individuals and artists open the book, and throughout there are concept photos, tracklists of all previous albums, and over 330 QR codes. As digital artists, BTS has been communicating with the world through the internet and this book allows readers to immediately access trailers, music videos, and more online to have a rich understanding of all the key moments in BTS history.

Complete with a timeline of all major milestones, BEYOND THE STORY is a remarkable archive-truly everything about BTS in one volume.

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The Wager
€17.50
1 BESTSELLER From the international bestselling author of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z, a mesmerising story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell.

They were survivors of His Majesty’s ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, the Wager was wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The crew, marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2,500 miles of storm-wracked seas.

They were greeted as heroes. Then, six months later, another, even more decrepit, craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways and they had a very different story to tell.

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Old Istanbul and Other Essays
€22.00
This is the first book of essays by a major new Irish non-fiction writer from the West of Ireland, comparable to the celebrated Kilkenny essayist Hubert Butler first published by The Lilliput Press and subsequently widely acclaimed. McCarthy’s writing is no less distinguished than Butler’s.

Gerard McCarthy writes of the extraordinarily subtle mix of his essays: “Perhaps the Philosophers who had the most enduring influence on me were the contrary figures of Nietzsche and Marcus Aurelius. The reading of each was an antidote to the other, but I was drawn to both by an instinctive affinity. They were augmented subsequently by the gargantuan figure of Michel de Montaigne. My interest has continued to be in the region where Philosophy merges into Literature, with a preference for a language of metaphor rather than of abstract reasoning.”

McCarthy continues: “These eight essays were written over the course of more than a decade. The fact that they have all been published in the one place, by the good offices of Irish Pages, has allowed me see the continuity between them, and to hope that they might be seen by the reader to form a unity.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gerard McCarthy (1949-2022) was born and reared in Dublin, and spent most of his adult life in Sligo, where he worked as social worker. He studied Philosophy at University College Dublin, with an early interest in Nietzsche and Marcus Aurelius, augmented subsequently by Michel de Montaigne. His first published essays – now collected here – have all appeared in issues of Irish Pages: A Journal of Contemporary Writing. He divided his time between his Sligo residence, an old schoolhouse on Collanmore Island in Clew Bay, and various travels to the Mediterranean and other peripheries of Europe. Old Istanbul & Other Essays was his first book.

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Adventures in Wonderland
€15.95
Irishman Paul Charles is one of the leading music agents on the planet. Over the past 40 years, he has worked with some of the biggest names in music, at different times managing the careers of Van Morrison, Ray Davies of The Kinks, Gerry Rafferty, The Waterboys and Dexys Midnight Runners, and launching Tanita Tikaram – the teenage star whose debut album sold almost 5 million copies – into the world.

In his role with the Asgard agency, he has also promoted shows featuring many of the leading artists in the world, including The Police, U2, Van Morrison, Dire Straits, Carole King, Meatloaf, David Gilmour, BB King, Emmylou Harris and John Lee Hooker.

Paul has also been involved since the early days with Glastonbury Festival, with his artists topping the bill on more than one occasion before he was invited by Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis to take on the daunting – and inspiring – task of booking the Acoustic Stage at the festival every year, a role he has carried out for the past 30 years.

Packed with jaw-dropping stories, including the time when he was almost burned alive along with his precious record collection, and pen pictures of the kind of stars we all want to know more about, Adventures In Wonderland is also one of the most complete insights into the world – and the business – of music that you will ever encounter. It is a must-read for every music fan – and for students of how the world of rock ’n’ roll works alike.

Powerfully honest, often hilarious, frequently touching, and with wonderfully evocative photos, Adventures in Wonderland is a thoroughly joyous trip that will inspire readers to fall in love with music – whether for the first time or, better still, all over again…

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I Will Be Good
€18.50
Meet Peig McManus, an unforgettable Dublin character whose story will make you laugh and cry. Her memoir of a 1940s’ childhood is recounted with candour and wit, as she describes her early years in the last of the city’s tenements, under the shadow of the Second World War. Even in the midst of sorrow, as the ravages of poverty and tuberculosis prevailed, there was always singing and laughter.

Peig recalls happy family gatherings in their tenement rooms before their way of life was shattered when the slums were cleared, making way for the migration of inner-city families to Dublin’s new suburbs. Peig learned early about class distinction, chastity and shame, and fought against social prejudice to become one of Ireland’s foremost campaigners for educational reform. But a quiet sorrow lay at the heart of her life, one which could not be hidden forever.

Now, in her eighties, Peig shares her story: an inspiring journey through the trials and triumphs of a remarkableIrish woman who refused to do what she was told.

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Foreign Bodies
€19.95
Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before.

Characteristically, with Schama the message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope – in hospitals and prisons, palaces and slums – are an unforgettable cast of characters: a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong and Mumbai.

At the heart of it all, an unsung hero: Waldemar Haffkine. A gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as ‘the saviour of mankind’ for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world’s first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice.

Foreign Bodies crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, ‘there are no foreigners, only familiars’.

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Great Hatred
€13.50
A gripping investigation into one of Irish history’s greatest mysteries, Great Hatred reveals the true story behind one of the most significant political assassinations to ever have been committed on British soil.

‘Heart-stopping . . . The book is both forensic and a page-turner, and ultimately deeply tragic, for Ireland as much as for the murder victim.‘ MICHAEL PORTILLO

On 22 June 1922, Sir Henry Wilson – the former head of the British army and one of those credited with winning the First World War – was shot and killed by two veterans of that war turned IRA members in what was the most significant political murder to have taken place on British soil for more than a century.

His assassins were well-educated and pious men. One had lost a leg during the Battle of Passchendaele. Shocking British society to the core, the shooting caused consternation in the government and almost restarted the conflict between Britain and Ireland that had ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty just five months earlier.

Wilson’s assassination triggered the Irish Civil War, which cast the darkest of shadows over the new Irish State. Who ordered the killing? Why did two English-born Irish nationalists kill an Irish-born British imperialist? What was Wilson’s role in the Northern Ireland government and the violence which matched the intensity of the Troubles fifty years later? Why would Michael Collins, who risked his life to sign a peace treaty with Great Britain, want one of its most famous soldiers dead, and how did the Wilson assassination lead to Collins’ tragic death in an ambush two months later?

Drawing upon newly released archival material and never-before-seen documentation, Great Hatred is a revelatory work that sheds light on a moment that changed the course of Irish and British history for ever.

‘McGreevy provides more than the anatomy of a political murder; in reconstructing this era of blood, poverty and wartime trauma, he also gives full expression to the terrible forces that WB Yeats once called the “fanatic heart” and the “great hatred”.‘ THE TIMES

‘Thoughtful and well-researched . . . an important and valuable addition to the library of the Irish Revolution.‘PROFESSOR DIARMAID FERRITER, University College Dublin

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