Flirting with Evil – The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation: A sprawling but intelligent history
Book is essentially a 400-page charge sheet of blunders and scandals that resulted from identity crisis in organisation
Book Reviews
Séamas O’Reilly on best graphic novels of 2026 so far
Dogs on Dates, by Luke Healy; The Woodchipper, by Joe Ollman; Fault Lines, by Rob Cullen; Dear Historian, by Joff Winterheart; and Children of Light, by Jean Pleyers
Clara and Christina by Andrew Cunning: Questioning the nature of contemporary fiction
Daring debut novel explores themes around publishing, identity and bland writing trends
A trivial comedy for serious YA readers, and more summer page-turners for teens
Prolific author Elle Kennedy has published her first YA novel, Thornbird, a satisfyingly twisty and swoony mystery tale
Marilyn Monroe: a life of endless mystery and metamorphosis in books
As a foster kid who became a princess, the screen siren who would now be 100 is the embodiment of the American dream
Jan Morris – A Life by Sara Wheeler: Biography races through writer’s contradictory 94 years
Rather than tackle all of Morris’s books, author summarises just one-third of total collection
A Chorus of Ears by Denise Riley: Enjoy the company of an egregiously intelligent companion
Riley is one of our clearest thinkers
Proust by Samuel Beckett: A fascinating glimpse of a Nobel laureate ‘in the making’
Beckett’s youthful study illuminates the intellectual development of one of Ireland’s most formidable literary talents
Religion in Irish Literature and Culture: Original and thought-provoking essays
Timely collection covers a range of topics from gothic fiction to poetry and women of the diaspora
The Poems of Sylvia Plath review: Leaping virtuoso from the page, clear as a bell
Authors tactfully focus on Plath’s vital hard-won poems, while their introduction affirms how she ‘taught readers to love poetry’
Reviews in brief: Cold War Football, The Albany Trilogy and Five Noir Novels of the 1950s & 60s
New books by Tony Shaw, Alan McDougall, William Kennedy and Jim Thompson
We Need to Tax Billionaires: A fair way to broaden the base
Author notes, for example, that the superrich in France face an effective tax rate half that of the average French person
Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead: Violence, humour and sharp social criticism
Final novel in two-time Pulitzer winner’s Harlem Trilogy traces evolution of its ageing crook characters and of New York itself
The Rise and Fall of American Europe: United States set to be much more transactional
Washington prepared to interfere in European politics to influence policy towards Middle East and US tech interests
Every Exit Brings You Home by Naeem Murr: An absorbing novel
A nuanced narrative that exposes the tragic heritage novelist and protagonist share as Palestinians
Contrapposto by Dave Eggers: A profoundly earnest, funny and sexy read
Author expresses an unusual and emotive quality in this novel – pure, unabashed feeling
New poetry: An indispensable mirror to death-dealing cultures of neglect and abuse
Collections by Stephen de Búrca, Nithy Kasa, Eamon Grennan and Rita Ann Higgins reviewed
On Witness and Respair by Jesmyn Ward: Creative non-fiction blends dreamscapes and family lore
An excellent compendium, and a valuable introduction to the author’s novels
Herta Müller’s The Village on the Edge of the World: Survival under Ceausescu’s regime
A book about language, memory and the imagination’s resistance to fear
Signals by Saira Hameed: Hooray for hormones
Excellent overview of disorder in our internal chemistry shows author to be an optimistic cheerleader for endocrinology
Andrew Cunning: ‘Being second best is nothing to be afraid of! I’ve been telling my brother that for years’
‘Writing a novel is pretty audacious to begin with. Why not lean into the audacity a little?’
The Prophetic Voice: Jean Sulivan, a writer who spoke up for the little guy and girl
Exploring what it means to ‘live a good life’
How Do People Stay the Same by Mark Bowles: The making of the man
A tender novel whose meditations on the self’s uncertain parameters urge excavating the past to better understand the present
The Traveller by Andrea Wulf: George Forster’s quest for common humanity
At age 17, Forster was invited by the British admiralty to accompany Captain James Cook on his second expedition
Downfall of a King: Juan Carlos paradox strains even Paul Preston’s superb abilities
Once hailed as the saviour of Spanish democracy, scandal precipitated the former monarch’s abdication and exile
The August Coup by Robert Service: masterly scholarship written like a political thriller
Density of detail in Service’s research means this book is likely to become a definitive account of episode
Books in brief: The Wrong Son feels like a fascinating late-night conversation with a stranger
Moving memoirs from Laurie Hertzel, Kevin Sharkey and Neil Griffiths
The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams: Strange, disturbing and sometimes very good
The novel is more concerned with the pettiness and absurdities of cancel culture than the scrambled interactions that spark them
The Medieval Castles of Ireland: Fascinating insights into secrets of the past
A comprehensive guide to buildings that chronicle centuries of conquest, settlement and adaptation
Neither Confirm Nor Deny by John Ware: Revelations about Britain’s morally compromised ‘dirty war’
The book about Troubles agents raises troubling questions around the rationale for espionage
Alan Titley: the most important prose writer in Irish since Máirtín Ó Cadhain
The extent to which Titley has taught us to read differently in Irish is persuasively demonstrated in each page of these welcome critical essays
Killing and destruction in Gaza: new book examines Israel’s campaign and the enablers
Fintan Drury’s Genocide: Sponsoring the Destruction of Palestine
The People’s Emperor by Edward Shawcross: Entertaining and thoroughly researched biography
An attempt to redress the balance and rescue Louis-Napoléon, one of the most popular, if divisive, men in 19th-century France
Translated literature: From a harsh and hilarious epic set in Apachería to a portrait of Toronto
Álvaro Enrique’s historical novel Now I Surrender tears up everything we know about the western
Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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