Books

  • The Wren, the Wren

    The Wren, the Wren

    15.95

    Nell – funny, brave and so much loved – is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape.

    For her mother, Carmel, Nell’s leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. And across the generations falls the long shadow of Carmel’s famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions.

    This is a meditation on love: spiritual, romantic, darkly sexual or genetic. A multigenerational novel that traces the inheritance not just of trauma but also of wonder, it is a testament to the glorious resilience of women in the face of promises false and true.

    Above all, it is an exploration of the love between mother and daughter – sometimes fierce, often painful, but always transcendent.

  • The Wych Elm

    The Wych Elm

    14.95

    Wych Elm
    WHAT DO WE HIDE INSIDE OURSELVES?

    One night changes everything for Toby. He’s always led a charmed life – until a brutal attack leaves him damaged and traumatised, unsure even of the person he used to be. He seeks refuge at his family’s ancestral home, the Ivy House, filled with memories of wild-strawberry summers and teenage parties with his cousins.

    But not long after Toby’s arrival, a discovery is made: a skull, tucked neatly inside the old wych elm in the garden.

  • THE YEAR I MET YOU

    THE YEAR I MET YOU

    4.99

    A thoughtful, captivating and ultimately uplifting novel from this uniquely talented author. Jasmine loves two things: her sister and her work. And when her work is taken away she has no idea who she is.Matt loves two things: his family and the booze. Without them, he hits rock bottom.One New Year’s Eve, two people’s paths collide.

    Both have time on their hands; both are at a crossroads. But as the year unfolds, through moonlit nights and suburban days, an unlikely friendship slowly starts to blossom.Sometimes you have to stop still in order to move on…Original and poignant, The Year I Met You will make you laugh, cry and celebrate life.

  • The Yoga Manifesto

    The Yoga Manifesto

    17.95

    How did an ancient spiritual practice become the preserve of the privileged?

    Nadia Gilani has been practising yoga as a participant and teacher for over twenty-five years. Yoga has saved her life and seen her through many highs and lows; it has been a faith, a discipline, and a friend, and she believes wholeheartedly in its radical potential. However, over her years in the wellness industry, Nadia has noticed not only yoga’s rising popularity, but also how its modern incarnation no longer serves people of colour, working class people, or many other groups who originally pioneered its creation.

    Combining her own memories of how the practice has helped her with an account of its history and transformation in the modern west, Nadia creates a love letter to yoga and a passionate critique of the billion-dollar industry whose cost and inaccessibility has shut out many of those it should be helping. By turns poignant, funny, and shocking, The Yoga Manifesto excavates where the industry has gone wrong, and what can be done to save the practice from its own success.

  • There Are Rivers In The Sky

    There Are Rivers In The Sky

    17.95
    Description

    THE TOP FIVE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

    This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives – all connected by a single drop of water.

    *****

    In the ruins of Nineveh, that ancient city of Mesopotamia, there lies hidden in the sand fragments of a long-forgotten poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh.

    In Victorian London, an extraordinary child is born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames. When his brilliant memory earns him a spot as an apprentice at a printing press, the world opens up far beyond the slums and across the seas.

    In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptised. The ceremony is cruelly interrupted, and soon she and her grandmother must journey across war-torn lands in the hope of reaching the sacred valley of their people.

    In 2018 London, broken-hearted Zaleekhah, a hydrologist, moves to a houseboat on the Thames to escape the wreckage of her marriage – until an unexpected connection to her homeland changes everything.

  • There's a Ghost in this House

    There’s a Ghost in this House

    24.95

    Description
    A captivating new picture book with interactive transparent pages, from world-renowned artist Oliver Jeffers. Hello, come in. Maybe you can help me? A young girl lives in a haunted house, but has never seen a ghost.

    Are they white with holes for eyes? Are they hard to see? She’d love to know! Step inside and turn the transparent pages to help her on an entertaining ghost hunt, from behind the sofa, right up to the attic. With lots of friendly ghost surprises and incredible mixed media illustrations, this unique and funny book will entertain young readers over and over again!

  • Thin Places

    Thin Places

    16.50
    Description
    A breathtaking mix of memoir, nature writing and history: this is Kerri ni Dochartaigh’s story of a wild Ireland, an invisible border, an old conflict and the healing power of the natural world’A special, beautiful, many-faceted book’ Amy Liptrot’A remarkable piece of writing . . .

    Luminous’ Robert Macfarlane’Eloquent . . .

    moving’ Sinead GleesonKerri ni Dochartaigh was born in Derry, on the border of the North and South of Ireland, at the very height of the Troubles. She was brought up on a council estate on the wrong side of town. But for her family, and many others, there was no right side.

    One parent was Catholic, the other was Protestant. In the space of one year they were forced out of two homes and when she was eleven a homemade petrol bomb was thrown through her bedroom window. Terror was in the very fabric of the city, and for families like Kerri’s, the ones who fell between the cracks of identity, it seemed there was no escape.

    In Thin Places, a mixture of memoir, history and nature writing, Kerri explores how nature kept her sane and helped her heal, how violence and poverty are never more than a stone’s throw from beauty and hope, and how we are, once again, allowing our borders to become hard, and terror to creep back in. Kerri asks us to reclaim our landscape through language and study, and remember that the land we fight over is much more than lines on a map. It will always be ours but, at the same time, it never really was.

  • THIRTY-NINE STEPS

    THIRTY-NINE STEPS

    5.00

    Richard Hannay finds a corpse in his flat, and becomes involved in a plot by spies to precipitate war and subvert British naval power. The resourceful victim of a manhunt, he is pursued by both the police and the ruthless conspirators. The Thirty-Nine Steps is a seminal ‘chase’ thriller, rapid and vivid.

    It has been widely influential and frequently dramatised: the film directed by Alfred Hitchcock became a screen classic. This engaging novel also provides insights into the inter-action of patriotism, fear and prejudice.

  • Thirty-Two Words For Field

    Thirty-Two Words For Field

    19.95

    The Irish language has thirty-two words for field. Among them are: Geamhar – a field of corn-grass; Tuar – a field for cattle at night; Reidhlean – a field for games or dancing; Cathairin – a field with a fairy-dwelling in it. The richness of a language closely tied to the natural landscape offered our ancestors a more magical way of seeing the world. Before we cast old words aside, let us consider the sublime beauty and profound oddness of the ancient tongue that has been spoken on this island for almost 3,000 years. In Thirty-Two Words for Field, Manchan Magan meditates on these words – and the nuances of a way of life that is disappearing with them.

  • 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.
  • This is also a Love Story

    This is also a Love Story

    19.50

    From the Orwell Prize-winning author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned comes a powerful account of human resilience, capturing our capacity for love and connection against all odds. We live in an era defined by crisis – whether it be war and displacement, or climate collapse and rapidly widening inequality. Acclaimed international correspondent Sally Hayden has spent her career covering some of the darkest moments of our time, and yet even in the face of unimaginable adversity, she’s witnessed the love and care of everyday people.

    Hayden introduces us to a couple separated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a mother in northeast Nigeria who risks everything to save her daughter from forced marriage to Boko Haram militants. We meet a group of Syrian women searching tirelessly for their missing spouses and children, while launching a call for justice, and learn about letters from the bereaved to the dead, still being written over a decade after the tsunami that devastated Japan. In stories that crisscross the globe, from Uganda to Lebanon, Rwanda to Iraq, Hayden asks us: what if news was recounted through the actions people take for those they love? Would it become harder to dehumanise those who seem different to us? This is Also a Love Story dares us to recognise how love can be found in even the most difficult of times, and to question what might be needed to create a better world.

    ‘Shows us that in the midst of war, around the most acute suffering, there is also tremendous heroism’ NATHAN THRALL, author of A Day in the Life of Abed Salama ‘ Sally Hayden uncovers miracles. She may be one herself’ ALEX PERRY, author of Blood Will Flow ‘A beautifully penned tribute to what can keep us human in the face of catastrophe. Read this book to lighten your soul’ ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN, author of The Palestine Laboratory

  • This Is It

    This Is It

    15.95

    This is it. The key to happiness is recognising that, yes, this is it. You’re all you have to work with and this moment is the only one you have any control over.

    It took a while for Conor Creighton to understand this powerful concept. But once he did, his life changed forever. Conor Creighton came out of the womb chewing his fingernails.

    A chaotic childhood saw his default mode set to ‘generally miserable’, so he left home at 17, vowing never to return. The ensuing decades of disorder resulted in chronic anxiety. At rock bottom, he signed up for a ten-day silent meditation retreat.

    It was hell. His legs ached. His butt felt like it was on fire.

    His mind threw at him a never-ending collage of regrets, wants and realisations. Then, suddenly, for the first time in nearly twenty years, he felt calm as relief and, eventually, joy washed over him. He learned that meditation has just one goal: to recognise that this is it.

    There is nothing else. No desire to get anywhere or change or improve anything. When Conor stopped trying to get somewhere or ‘be someone’ and realised that this, and this alone, is it, his anxiety abated, he learned to like himself and he discovered that he might even be happy.

    By remembering that ‘this is it’ in uncomfortable times and in comfortable times, your life can become a lot like meditation. In this highly entertaining, refreshingly honest memoir and meditation guide, you’ll discover how. ‘Conor is Ireland’s answer to Sam Harris.

    This book will you teach you truly life-altering wisdom that has stood the test of both time and science in the most hilarious, relatable and heart-warmingly welcoming way.’ Daniella Moyles ‘I love Conor’s way of sharing the magic of contemplation and meditation. In a world filled with distraction and noise Conor reminds us to slow down and come back to ourselves. This Is It takes a practical approach to meditation and contemplation in what can feel like an overwhelming world.’ Pat Divilly ‘Other worldly and painfully, beautifully Irish all at one.

    Like poetry and philosophy read by your brother’s best friend who has been around the world and come back to serve you everything you’ve forgotten you already know. I adore this book and Conor.’ Angela Scanlon

  • This Is My Sea

    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.

  • This Is the Life

    This Is the Life

    16.95

    The GAA is Ireland’s largest civil society organisation, woven into the fabric of families and communities – and yet most books about Gaelic games focus on the greatest players and inter-county teams. This is the Life is a book about the 99 per cent: a witty and provocative look at grassroots GAA from the most intelligent and interesting Gaelic games pundit at work today.

    Ciarán Murphy – of Second Captains and the Irish Times – has an unmatched feel for the timeless elements of this world and a finger on the pulse of change. He looks at the plight of rural clubs that are losing their players to the cities – and he does so not only as a journalist but as a footballer who made the same move himself (and who once, flying home to play a club match, found himself alone on the plane with Jedward). He writes about working as an assistant in the clothing shop owned by the family of Jarlath Fallon – who was both Ciaran’s all-time sporting hero and the local postman. And he looks at things we usually prefer not to talk about, like the role of social class in the GAA.

    This is the Life is a book about the places the GAA comes from, the places it can take a person, and the things that make a local club worth fighting for.

  • This Plague of Souls

    This Plague of Souls

    15.95

    How do you rebuild a world that seems to be falling apart? Nealon returns to his family home in Ireland after a long time away, only to be greeted by a completely empty house. No heat or light, no sign of his wife or child anywhere. It seems the world has forgotten that he even existed.

    The one exception is a persistent caller on the telephone, someone who seems to know everything about Nealon’s life, his recent bother with the law and, more importantly, what has happened to his family. All Nealon needs to do is talk with him. But the more he talks the closer Nealon gets to the same trouble he was in years ago, tangled in the very crimes of which he claims to be innocent.

    Part roman noir, part metaphysical thriller, This Plague of Souls is a story for these fractured times, dealing with how we might mend the world, and the story of a man who would let the world go to hell if he could keep his family together.

  • THIS SIDE OF PARADISE AND THE BEAUTIFUL

    THIS SIDE OF PARADISE AND THE BEAUTIFUL

    5.00

    FITZGERALD, F SCOTT