This week's new publications reviewed
Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change, 1970-2000, RF Foster, Penguin, £8.99
With the Irish economy heading for a rocky patch, this book's appearance is almost uncannily timely. Foster applies his razor-sharp historical mind to the Celtic Tiger phenomenon, asking where we're at and how we got here. If nothing else, Luck and the Irish would be worth reading for its sassy collection of quotations featuring everyone from Bertie Ahern through Hugh Leonard to Horace Walpole and Colin Farrell. What makes it special, though, is Foster's way of making sense of an apparently random series of events and impressions - aka history. A crystal-clear snapshot of Ireland now, and - at a modest 227 pages - a terrific holiday read. - Arminta Wallace
Twelve Twenty Three, Eoin McNamee, Faber, £7.99
Fictionalising the final days and infamous death of Princess Diana is a challenge, and Eoin McNamee pulls it off with some élan. In depicting those August days at the end of the last century, McNamee creates a world of shadowy intrigue, where far-fetched conspiracy is the only currency. Harper, a former Belfast Special Branch officer, is hired to watch chauffeur Henri Paul and the iconic princess herself, and through his watchful eyes we gradually see the mechanism of conspiracy unfold.This is a brilliantly crafted thriller, though it faces an intractable problem. The conspiracies that have swirled about ever since her death have been so thoroughly appropriated by the Daily Express and the Daily Mail and Mohammed al-Fayed that creating a serious work about them is almost impossible. That McNamee succeeds to the degree he does is itself an achievement. - Davin O'Dwyer
The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur, Daoud Hari, Penguin, £8.99
The scale and severity of the suffering caused by the Darfur genocide is scarcely conceivable. Hundreds of thousands have been murdered by Sudanese government forces and by the Janjaweed militia groups they fund, with millions driven from their ancestral lands. Zaghawa tribesman Daoud Hari returned to his village in 2003 after studying and working abroad, just in time to witness its destruction by government helicopter gunships. This is his account of the years spent risking his life to bring foreign journalists and aid workers across the border from Chad into Darfur, translating his people's stories of unimaginable suffering and loss. Hari himself is arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the government. The savagery and terror of the genocide are related with a forceful clarity in a beautiful, humane book about inhumanity. - Mark O'Connell
Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes : A Year in the Life of Our Farm, Rosie Boycott, Bloomsbury, £7.99
Former editor of the Daily Express Rosie Boycott makes a foray into farming and gives an insightful and engaging account of a working farm and how it has been affected by the current climate of mass food production. Boycott is idealistic in her attitude and sometimes guilty of misguided optimism, but the book is an interesting read about how food is produced and the dangers that supermarkets pose not just to the economy but to the social structure of country towns and villages as well. It also chronicles a kind of personal renaissance which Boycott experienced after a car accident. Her initial farming endeavours act as the catalyst for her full-scale immersion in country life, where she reveals the trials and tribulations attached to yielding any profit in an economic climate that doesn't lend itself to organic farming. - Aoibhinn McBride
Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life, Steve Martin, Pocket Books, £7.99
In this elegant, funny and honest autobiography, Martin takes an affectionate look back at "the war years" of hard slog through which he honed his wacky, experimental stand-up routine. Stories about his difficult relationship with his father and the tough road that led to his pre-film stand-up fame are both truthful and revealing, without any hint of rancour. It's refreshing to witness sincere and generous credit being paid to those who inspired or supported him, from his co-performers at LA's Knott's Berry Farm theatre to the roadie who introduced him to Irish folk music - the Bothy Band's The Maid of Coolmore inspired Martin's own writing of LA Story, apparently. Ultimately, it's the man himself we find in this book, and it is an absolute joy to meet him. - Claire Looby
Divine Right? The Parnell Split in Meath, David Lawlor, Cork University Press, €25
Co Meath sent the then unknown Parnell to Westminster in 1875 and held him in great affection even after the O'Shea divorce revelations of 1890. But Bishop Thomas Nulty, instrumental in Parnell's entry into politics, turned against him and ensured that candidates supporting him would lose their seats in the county. The bishop claimed a "divine right" to instruct his flock in how they should vote, claiming that no Parnellite could "remain a Catholic". The towns of Kells, Navan and Trim supported Parnell, but rural areas went anti-Parnellite. This account, using participants' words to show what happened during the county's split, and placing local events in a national context, challenges the view that priests could lead people in a political direction only if that was the way they wished to go. Events in Co Meath at the time served to bolster the unionist claim the Home Rule would be Rome rule. - Brian Maye