Our Favourites

Northern Ireland is one hundred years old. Northern Ireland does not exist. Both of these statements are true.It just depends on who you ask. How do you write about a place like this? THE STRANGERS' HOUSE asks this question of the…

Learn how to meditate with this handy little volume from author Tara Ward. Offering advice on and information about the best way to engage in this ancient practice, Ward prompts the reader to take some time out of their busy day t…

The first of a six book series on titles on the Military History Of The Irish Civil War, this is an in-depth study of the battle for Limerick city. The story concentrates on the vicious battle that took place between Republican an…

The story of Big Maggie Polpin and her attempts to keep her family together after the death of her husband is an enduring theatre favourite. The dialogue crackles with hilarious, caustic putdowns as the indomitable Maggie deals wi…

In March 1920, the republican Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomas MacCurtain, was shot dead in his home. Blaming the RIC for his death, IRA members followed District Inspector Swanzy, believed to have ordered the killing, to his new posting…

During the War of Independence, faced with an armed insurrection it couldn’t stop, the British government introduced increasingly harsh penalties for suspected republicans, including internment without trial. This led to the incar…

The Dublin-born dramatist, essayist, poet and novelist, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900), was as unconventional as he was brilliant. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin and at Magdalen College, Oxford, displaying…

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was a prolific dramatist, critic, essayist, pamphleteer and social reformer. The shy, idealistic Irishman separated himself from his opinionated public persona, and his eccentric alter ego and his w…

Irish novelist, short-story writer and poet, James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941) is regarded as one of the greatest, most innovative literary talents of the twentieth century. Joyce revolutionised the structure of the moder…

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) is considered to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. A writer of verse since his teenage years, it was the publishing of The Wanderings of Oisin (1889) that brought him his first…

There are violent events and murders in the history of every country and Ireland is no exception. Through the years, it has had its share of violent murders including the murder of its most famous victim, Ellie Hanley or the 'Coll…

In this beautifully illustrated and highly accessible history of the subject, author Robert Snedden looks at what has been described as the fundamental science - the one that underpins all others.The history of physics is expansiv…

From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—here is award-winning writer Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and p…

A stunning collection of essays and memoir from twice Booker Prize winner and international bestseller Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror and the Light.  In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Boo…

How have our emotions shaped the course of human history? And how have our experience and understanding of emotions evolved with us? We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, who, as a species, have relied on cal…

An immersive memoir about a groundbreaking surfing career, and a stunning portrait of Ireland as one of the world’s most captivating big-wave surfing destinations. Born and raised in Bundoran, with the waves of the west coast of I…

On November 21, 1961, Michael C. Rockefeller, the twenty-three-year-old son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, vanished off the coast of southwest New Guinea when his boat capsized. He was on a collecting expedition for the …

From the New York Times best-selling author of Every Day, comes a touching, thoughtful and deeply romantic look at love and discovering your true self.  The two boys kissing are Craig and Harry. They're hoping to set the world re…

The author of the No.1 Sunday Times bestseller Think Like a Monk offers a revelatory guide to every stage of romance, drawing on ancient wisdom and new science. Nobody sits us down and teaches us how to love. So we’re often thrown…

There may be no insect with a worse reputation than the wasp, and none guarding so many undiscovered wonders. Where bees and ants have long been the darlings of the insect world, wasps are much older, cleverer and more diverse. Th…

A David and Goliath story about Ireland’s role as prime real estate for the world’s largest tech multinationals, and the considerable impact it has had on us as individuals. Since the arrival of Google to Dub…

A compelling, funny, first-hand account of Australia's wonderfully unique mammals and how our perceptions impact their future. Think of a platypus: they lay eggs (that hatch into so-called platypups), they produce milk without nip…

A collection of thought-provoking essays and revelations (seven essays, one speech and an extended autobiography) by Brian Aldiss, the master of British science fiction. Science fiction is everywhere. Every day fantasy is made fac…

The astonishing new portrait of the master of spy fiction, by the woman he kept secret for almost half his life.  John le Carré led a life entirely constructed of secrets. First as a British ‘spook’ during the Cold War, then as a …

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the most perilous event in history, when mankind faced a looming nuclear collision between the United States and Soviet Union. During those weeks, the world gazed into the abyss of potential annih…

In the first half of the 20th century, the men and women of Ireland experienced the brutal realities of a succession of wars - from the unrelenting casualties of WW1, to the domestic upheavals of the 1916 Rising and the Irish Civi…

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties – successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death…

'I said it before. Madness comes circling around. Ten-year cycles, as true as the sun will rise...'Some things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two.In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathere…

Have you ever heard the march of legions on a lonely country road? For two thousand years, the roads the Romans built have determined the flow of ideas and folktales, where battles were fought and where pilgrims trod. Almost every…

On the Beara peninsula in West Cork, a temperate rainforest flourishes. It is the life work of Eoghan Daltun, who had a vision to rewild a 73-acre farm he bought, moving there from Dublin with his family in 2009. An Irish Atlantic…