An Ocean Between Us


Ann O'Loughlin - 2020
    But then she is told that there was a woman in the car with him, a woman identified as his wife Amelia.Devastated, she flies to Dublin to try to make sense of Jack's secret life. As she grieves, she must learn to survive, and to do that she must find the truth. What else has he been keeping from her and how will she survive this betrayal...? A compelling and emotional novel of families and the secrets we keep... Praise for Ann's writing:'The Ludlow Ladies' Society brought me to a beautiful place and into a circle of friends that I didn't want to leave. Unputdownable' KATE KERRIGAN 'It's a heart-warming story ... but also an addictive page-turner with plenty of unexpected twists and reveals in store' READER'S DIGEST'A moving tale of loss, love and redemption' BELLA MAGAZINE'Deftly written, moving and courageous' THE SUNDAY TIMES'Slow-marching, romantic prose draws us into an old world that is rustic, genteel, quaint...[but] scandals lie in wait' IRISH INDEPENDENT'Highly engaging debut you will want to dive into' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, IRELAND'A lovely story of two women with the courage to confront the injustices of the past, bringing light to a dark corner of Ireland s recent history' KATHLEEN MACMAHON, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THIS IS HOW IT ENDS

Salomé


Oscar Wilde - 1891
    Symbolist poets and writers — Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice Maeterlinck among them — defended the play's literary brilliance. Beyond its notoriety, the drama's haunting poetic imagery, biblical cadences, and febrile atmosphere have earned it a reputation as a masterpiece of the Aesthetic movement of fin de siècle England.Written originally in French in 1892, this sinister tale of a woman scorned and her vengeance was translated into English by Lord Alfred Douglas. The play inspired some of Aubrey Beardsley's finest illustrations, and an abridged version served as the text for Strauss' renowned opera of the same name. This volume reprints the complete text of the first English edition, published in 1894, and also includes "A Note on Salomé" by Robert Ross, Wilde's lifelong friend and literary executor. Students, lovers of literature and drama, and admirers of Oscar Wilde and his remarkable literary gifts will rejoice in this inexpensive edition.

The Dreams of Tipu Sultan and Bali: The Sacrifice: Two Plays by Girish Karnad


Girish Karnad - 2004
    This play, first staged at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre, is based on a tenth-century Jain myth about a king who finds his queen involved with an elephant-keeper.

Ireland


William Trevor - 1998
    Here are its people, their lives driven by love, faith, and duty, surviving in a culture that blends tradition with transformation.

Unfiltered


Sophie White - 2020
    So when Amy Donoghue, social media manager extraordinaire steps in to rehabilitate her image, Ali realises she may have to wade once more into the grubby insta-hole. With her ex, Sam, still ignoring her and her mother Mini having a mild grief-induced psychotic break (her scheme for scattering Miles' ashes seems not only bonkers but borderline illegal), Ali's got little else to cling on to but #sponcon and #ootds. Meanwhile Shelly is trying to settle into her new life as a mum-of-two while being held hostage by her mysterious insta-stalker whose sole objective is to keep Shelly on Instagram. But with her fellow Mummy Influencer friends @HolisticHazel immersed in creating WYND festival (her answer to the Goop Summit) and @PollysFewBits being as non-descript as ever, Shelly must get to the bottom of it herself. When Ali starts attending Catfishers Anonymous as a part of Amy's plan for Image Rehab, she discovers some information that may just help Shelly ...

Night in Tunisia


Neil Jordan - 1982
    This book, which won raves at its first publication, shows all the hallmarks of the writer who became the award-winning film director so well known today.

Heartbreak House


George Bernard Shaw - 1919
    Each character in the house represents some facet of British society, Mangan being the nouveau riche capitalist, Hesione the flighty Bohemian, Ellie a struggling member of the lower class and so on.One of Shaw's most important and evident themes is reality versus appearances. By the end of the play, each character is revealed to be nothing like who they appeared to be in the beginning. Mangan, who was reported to be "a Napolean of industry" is revealed in the third act to be virtually penniless and incapable of running his own businesses. It is in fact Mazzini who runs Mangan's businesses although he at first appears mild and incompetent.

Fork in the Road


Denis Hamill - 2000
     When Colin Coyne, a young American filmmaker seeking aesthetic inspiration in Ireland, catches a pickpocket red-handed in a hotel pub, all it takes is one look into her dazzling eyes for him to fall hard. Purely for the sake of research -- or so he tells himself -- he hurtles headlong into the bewitching world of Gina Furey, a stunningly beautiful, iron-willed denizen of Dublin's gypsy criminal underground. Before he knows what's happening, he finds himself a star player in a Pygmalion-like relationship rich with dramatic film possibilities: the earnest Yankee auteur woos and wins the dangerous gypsy thief. But the tenuous lines separating art and reality soon dissolve and the neatly linear screenplay unfolding inside Colin's head is eclipsed by the brutal chaos and unpredictability of true life. By turns devastating and hopeful, bittersweet and hilarious, Fork in The Road is both a tragic love story and the riveting drama of one man's heartbreaking journey from exhilaration to desolation.

True Believers


Joseph O'Connor - 1991
    Here are sad-hearted priests, old friends, young lovers, rockers and rebels, husbands and runaway wives, punks and poets. They all are clinging desperately to some kind of faith in a mutable and dangerous world.

Every Inch of Her


Peter Sheridan - 2004
    Philo announces herself at their door one Sunday evening with the words, "God pointed me here." A large presence, weighing 240 pounds and bearing tattoos on her arm, Philo smokes, swears, and loves to eat. She is also a mother of five and in flight from her abusive husband, Tommo. In no time at all, Philo has made herself indispensable. At the senior Daycare Center, she gets the old folks talking to one another, singing old favorites, and playing bingo again. And with all the love she's got to give, it's only natural that she helps Cap and Dina-two people at the Center long separated by a bitter feud-come together again. By turns comical and tender, Peter Sheridan's novel is a beautifully written portrait of an unforgettable woman who touches everyone she meets through the sheer force of being herself.

Klondike House - Memories of an Irish Country Childhood


John Dwyer - 2012
    This was Ireland of the 1970s and 80s before the arrival of the short-lived economic riches of the Celtic Tiger.Dwyer's vivid and colorful prose describes his hard but happy life as part of a isolated but close-knit community:Early school days spent in a building with no running water or electricityAn encounter with a violent sheep that literally turned his world upside downThe days spent cutting the turf and saving the hay by handAn Irish Christmas where nearly everything on the table was sourced from the farmHis exciting family history that brought his relations to the Klondike Gold Rush in CanadaComplemented by a collection of evocative photographs, each story tells of a way of life that has now largely disappeared.Sprinkled with a selection of fitting works by some of Ireland's best-known poets such as Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanagh, this gem of a book is a chronicle of the simple but happy life of an Irish farmer boy.

Moira's Crossing


Christina Shea - 2000
    When their mother dies in childbirth, Moira and Julia O'Leary are left to rear their infant sister, Ann, while their father, a sheep farmer, despairs. After Ann dies, Moira and Julia depart Cork for Boston, but the painful secret behind Ann's death haunts their new lives and presages the confusion that will come to trouble the next generation. Moira and Julia have always been strikingly different, but theirs is a mercilessly dependable relationship -- Moira's boldness is fortified by Julia's quiet inner purpose, and Julia lives vicariously through her sister's impulsive actions. Moira's Crossing charts their shared journey through marriage, children, and life on the coast of Maine. At once an examination of the troubled intimacy of sisterhood and an inquiry into the meaning of faith, Moira's Crossing is also a story of what we leave behind and who we become because of it.

Fallen Star


Joan O'Neill - 2005
    Where Stella's family struggle to make ends meet, Charlie can have anything he wants, and that includes Stella, who is rapidly falling for him. Then Stella discovers she is pregnant. Suddenly Charlie is gone, and Stella is left with only the bracelet he gave her. Stella's devoutly religious mother, horrifed by the scandal, sends her errant daughter to a Magdalene Laundry convent, miles from home, where in return for daily and rigorous and endless chores, Stella will be able to have her baby in secret. The convent is bleak and austere, the nuns themselves cruel and lacking compassion. When Stella's baby girl is born, it will be taken from her for adoption, the only answer is to run away with her child. But Stella didn't expect the struggle and pain of being a single mother - with her family turning against her, who can she rely on for help. Out of the blue, comes support and love from an unexpected quarter, to finally make Stella's story a happy one.

On Balance


Sinéad Morrissey - 2017
    The poems also address gender inequality and our inharmonious relationship with the natural world. A poem on Lilian Bland – the first woman to design, build and fly her own aeroplane – celebrates the audacity and ingenuity of a great Irish heroine. Elsewhere, explorers in Greenland set foot on a fjord system accessible to Europeans for the first time in millennia as a result of global warming. But if life is fragile then its traces are persistent, insistent, and in ‘Articulation’ we are invited to stop and wonder at the reconstructed skeleton of Napoleon’s horse, Marengo, ‘whose very hooves trod mud at Austerlitz’, suspended in time ‘for however long he lasts before he crumbles’.

Something For The Weekend


Pauline McLynn - 2000
    The one catch is she has to masquerade as a member of a cookery course and the only piece of culinary equipment Leo can handle is a tin opener - Weekend Entertaining Part 1 is daunting to say the least. As she strips away layers of marital infidelity - not to mention several other scandalous secrets - she battles with bread-making and brulee. But where will it all end - in triumph or tragedy?