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Books

December 2022

Masterclass in messaging: Volodymyr Zelensky personally chooses his camera angles. Photo Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Masterclass in messaging: Volodymyr Zelensky personally chooses his camera angles. Photo Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Gallery

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Invasion by Luke Harding: Ukraine fights back with charisma, cameras and chaos

Of all the millions of horrifying, heartbreaking and sometimes inspiring images that have emerged from Ukraine since Russia’s invasion nine months ago, one that has stood out for me is a photo of “Wolf_68” graffitied on the wall of a home in Bucha, a city where Russian troops carried out a grisly massacre of Ukrainian civilians in March. Reuters reporters quickly determined that “Wolf_68” was the handle, on several social media networks, of a Russian soldier from the northwestern city of Pskov.

Louise Kennedy’s novel ‘Trespasses’ was awarded Irish Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards Louise Kennedy’s novel ‘Trespasses’ was awarded Irish Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards Gallery

What the writers read — top authors on the books that made an impression in 2022

Louise Kennedy For me, the most memorable fiction often comes in small parcels. This Train Is For (No Alibis Press) is a collection of beautifully crafted short stories from Co Derry writer Bernie McGill. Written in prose that is both lyrical and plainspoken, these tales of memory and regret have a tremendous quiet power. Bernard McLaverty’s Blank Pages and Other Stories (Vintage) seem a natural progression from Midwinter Break, examining aging with humanity, wisdom and humour. Jane Campbell’s Cat Brushing (Quercus) is sensuous, strange and utterly original. For those of you who love a ‘never too late’ back story, she is 80 – and this is her first book. This Woman’s Work, edited by Sinéad Gleeson and Kim Gordon (White Rabbit) is a collection of essays by women on music. My favourites are Anne Enright on Lori Anderson and Jenn Pelly on my beloved Lucinda Williams. In poetry, Padraig Regan’s outstanding first full collection, Some Integrity (Carcanet), is my pick of the year. It is hard to choose just a few novels, but these stood out: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s When We Were Birds (Hamish Hamilton) is set in a Trinidad both magical and real, and written in a rich demotic; so much more than a love story. In Yiyun Li’s The Book of Goose (Fourth Estate), two unhealthily close French teenagers pull off an elaborate hoax that has devastating consequences for one of them. Finally, Lucy Caldwell’s These Days is a gorgeous, heart-stopping novel set during the Belfast Blitz. Lastly, a heads up for next year. I adored an early proof of Michael Magee’s debut novel Close to Home, coming from Hamish Hamilton in spring. Sean Maguire is a compelling protagonist as he tries to find his way in a Belfast stalked by the ghosts of old conflicts, personal and political.

Matthew Perry writes about his health troubles in his book 'Friends, Lovers and The Terrible Big Thing' Matthew Perry writes about his health troubles in his book 'Friends, Lovers and The Terrible Big Thing' Gallery

The best seven celebrity memoirs of the year

We probably had an inkling that Matthew Perry had a pretty interesting story in him, but as Friends, Lovers and The Terrible Big Thing (Headline) reveals, reports about his mental health and addiction struggles were only the tip of the iceberg. In his autobiography the Friends star details the range of health troubles his misuse of drugs like Xanax and Oxycontin left him with, including erectile dysfunction and a ruptured colon which left him on life support.

War and peace – there has been a spate of publishing on Putin and Russia War and peace – there has been a spate of publishing on Putin and Russia Gallery

The best eight politics books of the year

Publishing moves in waves. If last year’s Irish history and politics books were hooked on partition, this year more take on whether a united Ireland is possible and what it might look like. Some are polemics, full of tendentious arguments that assume that a united Ireland is a ‘natural’ end. Others are dull and full of self-importance. These charges can’t be levelled at Malachi O’Doherty who combines personal memoir with acute analysis in Can Ireland Be One? (Merrion Press). Questioning the idea that there is such a thing as a single Irish nation, he finds it’s all a bit more complicated than that.

Marian Keyes's 'Again, Rachel' is utterly heartbreaking but also laugh-out-loud funny Marian Keyes's 'Again, Rachel' is utterly heartbreaking but also laugh-out-loud funny Gallery

The best six crime and popular fiction books of the year

This has been a vintage year for characters old and new. Again, Rachel (Michael Joseph) brings back one of Marian Keyes most-loved characters 20 years on. Keyes is always at her best when writing about the Walsh family and Again, Rachel is no exception. The ‘happy ever after’ at the end of Rachel’s Holiday didn’t last – life got in the way. This is a book that is utterly heartbreaking at times but also laugh-out-loud funny.

Along with Paul Smyth, Diarmuid Gavin has produced a really accessible guide to the gardening year Along with Paul Smyth, Diarmuid Gavin has produced a really accessible guide to the gardening year Gallery

The best five lifestyle books of the year

“January is a shitshow” are the rather bald opening words of Gardening Together (Gill Books) by Diarmuid Gavin and Paul Smyth, but they are right. It can be a miserable month. So use the time to plan what you intend to do with your garden over the next 12 months with the help of two gardening gurus who have it sussed. It all began with a socially distanced chat over the bonnet of Gavin’s car at a motorway service station at the start of the lockdown when they decided to do a weekly podcast on Instagram and gained so many fans they realised a joint book was the next step. A really accessible guide to the gardening year, this is fun, informative and beautifully photographed.

Ardal O'Hanlon and Dermot Morgan in Father Ted Ardal O'Hanlon and Dermot Morgan in Father Ted Gallery

Unholy Catholic Ireland: Father Ted emerges as a modern patron saint in first in-depth book on Irish ex-Catholicism

‘The very air of Ireland inspires no other religion… the very beasts themselves appear to be impregnated by the Catholic faith.” These words, quoted in a work by 17th century Galway priest-scholar John Lynch, were not unusual at a time when Irish political and religious identities were vigorously contested. For Lynch, the very soil of Ireland was Catholic. One wonders, then, what he might have made of Hugh Turpin’s masterful volume on Irish irreligion.

Curious second career: Actor Richard Harris in 1972 with his single All The Broken Children. Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Curious second career: Actor Richard Harris in 1972 with his single All The Broken Children. Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Gallery

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Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven — The story of a biographer, a bromance and a charming monster

The task of an authorised biographer runs along fairly straight lines: to piece together the story of a life using privileged access to sources. The subject may still be around to help or (sometimes) hinder. If not, the estate may have some sort of oversight. It’s a basic tenet that the narrator should not join the story like some Tristram Shandy-esque interloper. Every single one of these conventions is cast aside in Richard Harris: Raising Hell and Reaching for Heaven.

Diplomat: Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII, during his posting in Germany in 1927. Photo by Bettmann Archive via Getty Diplomat: Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII, during his posting in Germany in 1927. Photo by Bettmann Archive via Getty Gallery

The Pope at War by David I Kertzer: Pius XII was a moral failure but not ‘Hitler’s pope’

Pope Pius XII was certainly not “Hitler’s Pope”, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Kertzer concludes in his latest book. This readable history provides fresh insights into the Vatican’s relations with the Nazi and the Italian fascist regimes during the Second World War. Though the historian dismisses the contention at the heart of John Cornwell’s “provocative” book title, his more nuanced take is still strongly critical of Pius XII’s and the Vatican’s silence in the face of the mass murder of Europe’s Jews.

November 2022

Man of action: Erskine Childers in the British army. Photo by Hulton Archive via Getty Man of action: Erskine Childers in the British army. Photo by Hulton Archive via Getty Gallery

Erskine Childers’ life was stranger than his fiction: From British army soldier to Asgard gun-runner

No novelist gets close to Erskine Childers when it comes to living the life of the books. Ian Fleming and John le Carré may have worked as intelligence agents before using their protagonists, James Bond and George Smiley, to play out their fantasies, but Childers first invented the modern spy thriller, then spent the rest of his turbulent life trying to outdo the adventures of his own creation. Executed by firing squad in Dublin 100 years ago this month, to the very end he exhibited the cool, upper-class insouciance of the character he so desperately wanted to become.

Bob Dylan has always had a way with words. Photo: Kevin Winter Bob Dylan has always had a way with words. Photo: Kevin Winter Gallery

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Bob Dylan’s new essay collection paints him as a misanthropic, cranky old man with views that would get anyone else cancelled

He worked in a travelling carnival off and on for six years after dropping out of school. His next employment was as a sex worker in uptown Manhattan where sometimes he’d earn “one hundred a night, really, from four in the afternoon until three or four in the morning,” he said in an interview in the mid-1960s. “I almost got killed.“ In 1966, he was almost killed in a motorcycle accident that made him disappear from public life. He also had a heroin habit in New York.

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