Book picks similar to
Dublin, the fair city by Peter Somerville-Large
ireland
irish-books
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Too Close to Breathe
Olivia Kiernan - 2018
Professional. Perfect. Dead. Respected scientist Dr Eleanor Costello is found hanging in her immaculate home: the scene the very picture of a suicide.TOO LATE TO HIDEDCS Frankie Sheehan is handed the case, and almost immediately spots foul play. Sheehan, a trained profiler, is seeking a murderer with a talent for death.TOO CLOSE TO BREATHEAs Frankie strives to paint a picture of the killer, and their victim, she starts to sense they are part of a larger, darker canvas, on which the lines between the two blur.Olivia Kiernan's debut is a bold, brilliant thriller that will keep you guessing and leave you breathless.
Night
Edna O'Brien - 1973
From the center of her bed, "a four poster no less", Mary recalls her fertile past, from her childhood in the Irish countryside to the love affairs she has confronted since leaving for English shores. Wistful, wanton, this erotic reverie shows O'Brien to be one of the foremost heirs to modernism. "Very few writers use language as richly and sensuously... There are passages here worthy of Joyce" (Library Journal).
The Kings in Winter
Cecelia Holland - 1968
All through a long winter of strife, Muirtagh struggles to balance his own honor and that of his clan, against his divided loyalties to the three would-be Kings of Ireland. First published in 1968, The Kings in Winter is considered by Cecelia Holland's fans to be her finest work. The book is set in Ireland during the Danish invasion around 800 A.D.. Set against this background is a clan feud that consumes the majority of the plot.
Small-town Slayings in South Carolina (True Crime)
Rita Y. Shuler - 2009
After working with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division as special agent/forensic photographer for twenty-four years, Rita Shuler has a passion for remembering the victims. In Small-town Slayings, Shuler takes us back in time, showing differences and similarities of crime solving in the past and present and some surprising twists of court proceedings, verdicts and sentences. From an unsolved case that has haunted her for thirty years to a cold case that was solved after fifteen years by advanced DNA technology, Shuler blends her own memories with extensive research, resulting in a fast-paced, factual and fascinating look at crime in South Carolina.
A Short History of Ireland, 1500-2000
John Gibney - 2017
John Gibney proceeds from the beginning of Ireland’s modern period and continues through to virtually the present day, offering an integrated overview of the island nation’s cultural, political, and socioeconomic history. This succinct, scholarly study covers important historical events, including the Cromwellian conquest and settlement, the Great Famine, and the struggle for Irish independence. Gibney's book explores major themes such as Ireland’s often contentious relationship with Britain, its place within the British Empire, the impact of the Protestant Reformation, the ongoing religious tensions it inspired, and the global reach of the Irish diaspora. This unique, wide-ranging work assimilates the most recent scholarship on a wide range of historical controversies, making it an essential addition to the library of any student of Irish studies.
Another Kind of Life
Catherine Dunne - 2002
Further north, Maria and Cecilia are also sisters, struggling to make a living in the linen mills of Belfast.
Sea of Wolves
Philip K. Allan - 2020
Across the stormy North Atlantic battle rages between wolfpacks of U-boats and escort ships fighting to protect the Allies’ vital convoys. Meanwhile teams of codebreakers at Bletchley Park struggle to penetrate the German Navy’s Top-Secret Dolphin code, and unlock the flow of vital intelligence that will swing the battle in the Allies favour.Sea of Wolves plots the lives of three people caught up in the centre of the battle. Vera Baldwin, a young crossword-enthusiast, lifted from her quiet suburban life and thrown into the middle of the greatest codebreaking effort the world has seen. Otto Stuckmann, the rookie commander of U70, a German naval veteran struggling with the ceaseless demands being placed on him. Leonard Cole, the newly appointed first lieutenant of HMS Protea and a man with unfinished business to resolve.Each is unknown to the others as their fates spiral around each other, touching and twisting towards a final encounter that will change their lives forever.
Mahoney: A Novel
Andrew Joyce - 2019
From the first page to the last, fans of Edward Rutherford and W. Michael Gear will enjoy this riveting, historically accurate tale of adventure, endurance, and hope. In the second year of an Gorta Mhór--the Great Famine--nineteen-year-old Devin Mahoney lies on the dirt floor of his small, dark cabin. He has not eaten in five days. His only hope of survival is to get to America, the land of milk and honey. After surviving disease and storms at sea that decimate crew and passengers alike, Devin's ship limps into New York Harbor three days before Christmas, 1849. Thus starts an epic journey that will take him and his descendants through one hundred and fourteen years of American history, including the Civil War, the Wild West, and the Great Depression. Mahoney is recommended for fans of Barbara Kingsolve, Herman Wouk, Cormac McCarthy, Ayse Kulin, Frank Delany, James Michener, William Kent Krueger, and Louis L'Amour's The Sacketts series.
Being Various: New Irish Short Stories
Lucy CaldwellMelatu Uche Okorie - 2019
I wanted to capture something of the energy of this explosion, in all its variousness... Following her own acclaimed short-story collection, Multitudes, Lucy Caldwell guest-edits the sixth volume of Faber's long-running series of all new Irish short stories, continuing the work of the late David Marcus and subsequent guest editors, Joseph O'Connor, Kevin Barry and Deirdre Madden.
Belfast Diary: War as a Way of Life
John Conroy - 1987
This street-level view of Northern Ireland provides the best explanation of the twenty-five-year conflict.
Joyce's Voices
Hugh Kenner - 1978
Joyce's Voices is both a helpful guide through Joyce's complexities, and a brief treatise on the concept of objectivity: the idea that the world can be perceived as a series of reports to our senses. Objectivity, Kenner claims, was a modern invention, and one that the modernists--Joyce foremost among them--found problematic. Accessible and enjoyable, Joyce's Voices is what so much criticism is not: an aid to better understanding--and enjoying more fully--the work of one of the world's greatest writers.
The Wild Irish
Robin Maxwell - 2003
But her troubles are far from over. Just across the western channel, her colony Ireland is embroiled in seething rebellion, with the island's fierce, untamed clan chieftains and their "wild Irish" followers refusing to bow to their English oppressors.Grace O'Malley -- notorious pirate, gunrunner, and "Mother of the Irish Rebellion" -- is at the heart of the conflict. For years, she has fought against the English stranglehold on her beloved country. At the height of the uprising Grace takes an outrageous risk, sailing up the Thames to London for a face-to-face showdown with her nemesis, the queen of England.In this "enthralling historical fiction" (Publishers Weekly), Robin Maxwell masterfully brings to life these strong and pugnacious women in order to tell the little-known but crucial saga of Elizabeth's Irish war.
Authenticity
Deirdre Madden - 2002
When he meets Julia Fitzpatrick, it seems as if this period of turbulence and misfortune is at an end.
Last Night's Fun: In and Out of Time with Irish Music
Ciaran Carson - 1996
Each chapter takes the title of a traditional tune, and as in a session played by brilliant improvising musicians, each tune leads into another, melodies and variations weaving in and out in a haze of talk and memory. Carson's inspired jumble of recording history, poetry, tall tales, and polemic captures the sound and vigor of a ruthlessly unsentimental music. A leading Irish poet who is also an accomplished flute player, he tells of his Belfast childhood, of learning to play music, of his travels in Ireland and America, of poteen, pub life, and the special pleasure taken in a well-made Fry "the morning after the night before." Loosely interpreted standards, as Carson points out, achieve a special kind of profundity and resonance - a tune can never be played the same way twice - so this is also a book about the poignancy of lost airs, about music as "a way of renegotiating lost time" and recognizing mortality.
A Woman Without a Country: Poems
Eavan Boland - 2014
This stunning new collection, A Woman Without a Country, looks at how we construct one another and how nationhood and history can weave through, reflect, and define the life of an individual. Themes of mother, daughter, and generation echo throughout these extraordinary poems, as they examine how—even without country or settled identity—a legacy of love can endure.From “Talking to my Daughter Late at Night”We have a tray, a pot of tea, a scone.This is the hourWhen one thing pours itself into another:The gable of our house stored in shadow.A spring planet bending iceInto an absolute of light.Your childhood ended years ago. There isNo path back to it.