Celtic Fairy Tales


Joseph Jacobs - 1893
    The 26 stories of "Guleesh," "The Horned Women," "King O'Toole and His Goose," "The Sea-Maiden," "The Shee An Gannon and the Gruagach Gaire," "The Lad with the Goat-Skin," the legendary "Dierdre," "Beth Gellert," and the other wonderful characters, the curses and hexes, the broken promises and granted wishes are accompanied by eight full-page plates, 37 drawings, and decorated capitals and endpieces that help make this book the charming one that generations of youngsters have proclaimed it to be.

In the Night Garden


Catherynne M. Valente - 2006
    Welcome to the Arabian Nights for our time a lush and fantastical epic guaranteed to spirit you away from the very first page.Secreted away in a garden, a lonely girl spins stories to warm a curious prince: peculiar feats and unspeakable fates that loop through each other and back again to meet in the tapestry of her voice. Inked on her eyelids, each twisting, tattooed tale is a piece in the puzzle of the girl's own hidden history. And what tales she tells! Tales of shape-shifting witches and wild horsewomen, heron kings and beast princesses, snake gods, dog monks, and living stars each story more strange and fantastic than the one that came before. From ill-tempered mermaid to fastidious Beast, nothing is ever quite what it seems in these ever-shifting tales even, and especially, their teller. Adorned with illustrations by the legendary Michael Kaluta, Valente's enchanting lyrical fantasy offers a breathtaking reinvention of the untold myths and dark fairy tales that shape our dreams. And just when you think you've come to the end, you realize the adventure has only begun.

Borstal Boy


Brendan Behan - 1958
    . . I grabbed my suitcase, containing Pot. Chlor., Sulph Ac, gelignite, detonators, electrical and ignition, and the rest of my Sinn Fein conjurer's outfit, and carried it to the window . . ." The men were, of course, the police, and seventeen-year-old Behan. He spent three years as a prisoner in England, primarily in Borstal (reform school), and was then expelled to his homeland, a changed but hardly defeated rebel. Once banned in the Irish Republic, Borstal Boy is both a riveting self-portrait and a clear look into the problems, passions, and heartbreak of Ireland.

The Unkillable Kitty O'Kane


Colin Falconer - 2017
    As she sets out to save the world, she finds herself at the forefront of events that shaped the early twentieth century. While working as a maid, she survives the sinking of the Titanic. As a suffragette in New York’s Greenwich Village, she’s jailed for breaking storefront windows. And traveling war-torn Europe as a journalist, she’s at the Winter Palace when it’s stormed by the Bolsheviks. Ultimately she returns to her homeland to serve as a nurse in the Irish Civil War.During Kitty’s remarkable journey, she reunites with her childhood sweetheart, Tom Doyle, but Tom doesn’t know everything about her past—a past that continues to haunt her. Will Kitty accept that before she can save everyone else, she needs to find a way to save herself? Or will the sins of her past stop her from pursuing her own happiness?

Death of a Naturalist


Seamus Heaney - 1966
    As a first book of poems, it is remarkable for its accurate perceptions and its rich linguistic gifts.

Good Behaviour


Molly Keane - 1981
    I have always known...'Behind the gates of Temple Alice the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace. To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires.

The Woodcutter


Kate Danley - 2010
    Not a mark on her body. No trace of her murderer. Only her chipped glass slippers hint at her identity.The Woodcutter, keeper of the peace between the Twelve Kingdoms of Man and the Realm of the Faerie, must find the maiden’s killer before others share her fate. Guided by the wind and aided by three charmed axes won from the River God, the Woodcutter begins his hunt, searching for clues in the whispering dominions of the enchanted unknown.But quickly he finds that one murdered maiden is not the only nefarious mystery afoot: one of Odin’s hellhounds has escaped, a sinister mansion appears where it shouldn’t, a pixie dust drug trade runs rampant, and more young girls go missing. Looming in the shadows is the malevolent, power-hungry queen, and she will stop at nothing to destroy the Twelve Kingdoms and annihilate the Royal Fae…unless the Woodcutter can outmaneuver her and save the gentle souls of the Wood.Blending magic, heart-pounding suspense, and a dash of folklore, The Woodcutter is an extraordinary retelling of the realm of fairy tales.

The Dirty Dust: Cré na Cille


Máirtín Ó Cadhain - 1949
    Alan Titley’s vigorous new translation, full of the brio and guts of Ó Cadhain’s original, at last brings the pleasures of this great satiric novel to the far wider audience it deserves.   In The Dirty Dust all characters lie dead in their graves. This, however, does not impair their banter or their appetite for news of aboveground happenings from the recently arrived. Told entirely in dialogue, Ó Cadhain’s daring novel listens in on the gossip, rumors, backbiting, complaining, and obsessing of the local community. In the afterlife, it seems, the same old life goes on beneath the sod. Only nothing can be done about it—apart from talk. In this merciless yet comical portrayal of a closely bound community, Ó Cadhain remains keenly attuned to the absurdity of human behavior, the lilt of Irish gab, and the nasty, deceptive magic of human connection.

The Feckin' Book of Everything Irish: A Gansey-Load of Deadly Craic for Cute Hoors and Bowsies


Colin Murphy - 2006
    Patrick's Day, and you get all choked up when you hear the chorus of "Danny Boy." But there's more to Irish culture than just shamrocks and leprechauns and getting bullixed and acting like a eejit on St. Paddie's Day. If you're ready to expand your knowledge and take the next step to becoming a 100 percent, bona-fide Irish person, then this is the book for you, boyo.The Feckin' Book of Everything Irish is a rollicking, no-holds-barred tour of genuine Irish culture as experienced through its music and food and, especially, its unique way with words. The four chapters in this book are veritably heavin' with Irish slang worlds and phrases, quotes by famous Irish wits, rousing Irish songs for your next hooley, and authentic recipes that'll make yer oul' wan proud. We've also included a brief history of sex and love in Ireland, which goes a long way toward explaining why the Irish have such a feckin' wicked sense of humor.So don't just stand there like a cow looking over a whitewashed wall, get to readin'! You'll be arseways with laughter in no time.Colin Murphy is the co-author of a series of seven successful books on aspects of Irish culture, and, as someone with a head like a lump of wet turf, is well versed in the vast range of expressions and slang words used the length and breadth of Ireland. He has great experience with Irish food, as he's been eating it since the day he was born, and he knows the lyrics of hundreds of Irish tunes backwards. In fact, when he sings them, it sounds like he's singing them backwards, too. He is fascinated with the study of sex in the middle ages, as he's in his forties himself. He works in the advertising industry, where he has developed a powerful reputation as someone who'd lick drink off a scabby leg. He is married to a fine bit of stuff and has two little gurriers who'd put the heart crossways in ye.Donal O'Dea is also the co-author of a series of seven successful books on Irish culture. He is regularly as sick as a plane to Lourdes, mainly because he has a great lip for the stout. He, too, works as an artist in advertising, though to his colleagues he's only a doss artist. He considers himself an expert on many aspects of Irish culture—music, food, sex and love, expressions, getting plastered, getting fluthered, getting paralytic, getting ossified, and getting langered. He's also a Dub and his missus is completely savage. He's got two snappers and a little bucko, and whenever he gets a night's sleep, he dreams of living the life of Reilly, throwin' shapes, and going on all-day sessions.

Japanese Fairy Tales


Yei Theodora Ozaki - 1903
    Some are "Momotaro, "The Son of a Peach", "The Jellyfish and the Monkey", "The Mirror of Matsuyama", "The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child", "The Stones of Five Colors and the Empress Jokwa."

The Memory Shop


Ella Griffin - 2017
    . . are not things at all.Nora is fleeing London for her childhood home in Dublin after her heart is suddenly torn apart. Back home, she learns she has inherited all of her grandmother's worldly belongings - a feather shrug, a Tiffany mirror, a gold locket, and many more precious things besides.With no means of keeping them, and not able to bear auctioning everything off, Nora decides to open The Memory Shop so each object is matched to a perfect new owner.Soon Nora begins transforming the lives of those around her through the items she pairs them with, helping them find new happiness in unexpected ways. Now if she can only let go of her own past, she might just surprise herself . . .An uplifting novel set in a charming Irish community, about love, family and finding your way.

Miss Emily


Nuala O'Connor - 2015
    PoeAda Concannon’s first day in America is a success. She’s the new maid for the respected but eccentric Dickinson family of Amherst, Massachusetts. Despite the differences in age and class, eighteen-year-old Ada, “a neat little Irish person, fresh off the boat,” strikes up a deep freindship with Miss Emily, the gifted elder daughter living a spinster’s life at home. Emily is a bastion of support as Ada struggles to find her place in this new world, while Ada’s toil gives Emily the freedom she needs to write.But Emily’s passion for words begins to dominate her life. She decides to wear nothing but white and increasingly avoids the outside world. When Ada’s safety and reputation are threatened, however, Emily faces down her own demons in order to help her friend, with shocking consequences.

Reading in the Dark


Seamus Deane - 1996
    The matter: a deadly betrayal, unspoken and unspeakable, born of political enmity. As the boy listens through the silence that surrounds him, the truth spreads like a stain until it engulfs him and his family. And as he listens, and watches, the world of legend--the stone fort of Grianan, home of the warrior Fianna; the Field of the Disappeared, over which no gulls fly--reveals its transfixing reality. Meanwhile the real world of adulthood unfolds its secrets like a collection of folktales: the dead sister walking again; the lost uncle, Eddie, present on every page; the family house "as cunning and articulate as a labyrinth, closely designed, with someone sobbing at the heart of it."Seamus Deane has created a luminous tale about how childhood fear turns into fantasy and fantasy turns into fact. Breathtakingly sad but vibrant and unforgettable, Reading in the Dark is one of the finest books about growing up--in Ireland or anywhere--that has ever been written.

Christine Falls


Benjamin Black - 2006
    It’s the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse—and concealing the cause of death. It turns out the body belonged to a young woman named Christine Falls. And as Quirke reluctantly presses on toward the true facts behind her death, he comes up against some insidious—and very well-guarded—secrets of Dublin’s high Catholic society, among them members of his own family. Set in Dublin and Boston in the 1950s, the first novel in the Quirke series brings all the vividness and psychological insight of Booker Prize winner John Banville’s fiction to a thrilling, atmospheric crime story. Quirke is a fascinating and subtly drawn hero, Christine Falls is a classic tale of suspense, and Benjamin Black’s debut marks him as a true master of the form.

Notes to Self: Essays


Emilie Pine - 2018
    Tackling subjects like addiction, fertility, feminism and sexual violence, and where these subjects intersect with legislation, these beautifully written essays are at once fascinating and funny, intimate and searingly honest. Honest, raw, brave and new, Notes to Self breaks new ground in the field of personal essays.