English Irish

I can’t remember anymore if my grandfather’s eyes were blue or green, but I’ll never forget the way they wrinkled at the corners when he laughed at one of his own jokes. Or the way they sparkled with mischief when he told me tales about the magical creatures that dwelled in the forest behind his humble Irish sheep farm. As a child, I believed every fantastical word. But when he warned me about the mute boy who also lurked in those woods, the one the priest had declared to be the spawn of Satan himself, I refused to listen.

Family is everything to Siobhán: her five siblings; her dear departed mother for whom the family business, Naomi’s Bistro, is named; and now her fiancé, Macdara Flannery. So precious is her engagement that Siobhán wants to keep it just between the two of them for a little longer. But Macdara is her family, which is why when his cousin Jane frantically calls for his help, Siobhán rushes with him from Kilbane to the rural village where Jane and her mother have recently moved. In a cottage, Ellen Delaney lies on her bed in a fancy red dress, no longer breathing.

Robinswood, Co. Waterford, 1939. The once grand house is home to two very different families. Despite delusions of grandeur, Lord and Lady Kenefick and their adult children live a life of decayed opulence as the money needed to keep such a large house and grounds ever dwindles. Meanwhile, the Murphy family, Dermot, Isabella and their three almost grown-up girls, live and work on the estate and do their best to keep everything running smoothly.

Small Bones in a Fist is composed of stories drawn from Blindboy's first two published books: The Gospel According to Blindboy and Boulevard Wren and Other Stories. Curated, narrated and scored by the author, Small Bones in a Fist is a surreal, provocative and darkly funny introduction to one of the most original voices in Irish literature.

Charlotte Dean enjoys nothing more than the solitude of her London flat and the monotonous days of her work at a travel bookshop. But when her younger sister unceremoniously bursts into her quiet life one afternoon, Charlotte's world turns topsy-turvy. Beloved author D. E. Stevenson captures the intricacies of post-World War I England with a light, comic touch that perfectly embodies the spirit of the time. Alternatively heartbreaking and witty, The Young Clementina is a touching tale of love, loss and redemption through friendship.

Gwendolen Harleth gambles her happiness when she marries a sadistic aristocrat for his money. Beautiful, neurotic, and self-centered, Gwendolen is trapped in an increasingly destructive relationship, and only her chance encounter with the idealistic Deronda seems to offer the hope of a brighter future. Deronda is searching for a vocation, and in embracing the Jewish cause he finds one that is both visionary and life-changing.

Professional ballerina Ailsa MacIntyre is at the peak of her career when her world is shattered by a shocking diagnosis. Life-saving surgery leaves her with a fractured memory, little recollection of her husband, Evan, and none of her career as a principal dancer. While recuperating at home, Ailsa hears beautiful music coming from the apartment upstairs, and the sound of the grand piano at the hands of a talented new neighbor sparks her muscle memory. As her recovery progresses, the broken pieces of her past gradually re-emerge, a picture not quite what Evan would have her remember.

The Mill on the Floss, first published in 1860, tells the story of Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom as they grow from children to young adults in the small rural town of St. Ogg's, England. Intelligent and passionate, Maggie yearns to develop her mind and break free of the constraints of her provincial village. Though she loves her brother above anyone else, Tom's rigid, pragmatic personality often conflicts with Maggie's headstrong nature, with increasingly tragic consequences.

In 1845, a disaster struck Ireland. Overnight, a mysterious blight attacked the potato crops, turning the potatoes black and destroying the only real food of nearly six million people. Over the next five years, the blight attacked again and again. These years are known today as the Great Irish Famine, a time when one million people died from starvation and disease and two million more fled their homeland.

Young Michael, an illegal immigrant escaping the troubles in Northern Ireland is strong and fearless and clever, just the fellow to be tapped by Darkey, a crime boss, to join a gang of Irish thugs struggling against the rising Dominican powers in Harlem and the Bronx. The time is pre-Giuliani New York, when crack rules the city, squatters live furtively in ruined buildings, and hundreds are murdered each month.

The Knight's Tale of medieval wars and chivalry is the first tale told to the pilgrims as they set out to Canterbury. It concerns Theseus, returning from fighting at Thebes, and two brother knights Palamon and Arcite, imprisoned but yearning for their loves. But the real hero of this recording is Richard Bebb who, with the help of Professor Derek Brewer, the leading expert on Chaucerian pronunciation, make the original Middle English not only comprehensible to the modern ear, but exciting.

For decades, his family rescued lost and forgotten donkeys in the Irish countryside. He had no idea that one day, the donkeys would rescue him. Sanctuary is the remarkable true story of how faith turned one lost man’s life around with the help of the rescue animals who loved him. It’s an antidote to despair and a call to hope, revealing the beauty and wonder of Ireland as you’ve never seen it before.

There's a mantra real writers know but wannabe writers don’t. And the secret phrase is this: "Nobody wants to read your shit." Recognizing this painful truth is the first step in the writer's transformation from amateur to professional.

In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar priest named Artt has a dream in which God tells him to leave the sinful world behind. With two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the River Shannon in search of an isolated spot in which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find the impossibly steep, bare island known today as Skellig Michael. In such a place, what will survival mean?

The narrator is Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who, soon after his wife’s death, has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child—a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without her. But it is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled vacationing family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time.

As the golden summer draws to a close and the Darcys look ahead to the end of their first year of marriage, Mr. Darcy could never have imagined that his love could grow even deeper with the passage of time. Elizabeth is unpredictable and lively, pulling Darcy out of his stern and serious demeanor with her teasing and temptation. Looking ahead and planning for celebrations and life events large and small, Lizzy can still catch Darcy unawares when he least expects it.

In The Wisdom of the Shire, Noble Smith sheds light on the life-changing ideas tucked away inside the classic works of J. R. R. Tolkien and his most beloved creation—the stouthearted Hobbits. Drawing on The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other tales of Middle-earth, Smith shows how a snug hobbit-hole is actually just a state of mind and how even the smallest person can have the valor of a Rider of Rohan.

Three years after they narrowly escaped the IRA’s worst punishment for informing, Northern Irish sisters Tessa and Marian Daly have built a new life in Dublin with their young children. Though Tessa is haunted by the abrupt and violent end to her old life, she does her best to immerse herself in the joys of Finn’s childhood and the rhythms of her new job at The Irish Observer. It’s a small island, though, and just as quickly as they disappeared, figures from the sisters’ past surface to drag them back into the conflict.

"J'ai toujours eu un cœur excentrique." Bono a grandi dans le nord de Dublin entre un père catholique et une mère protestante, alors que les violences sectaires se multipliaient en Irlande. Il n'avait que quatorze ans lors du décès de sa mère, perte qui va façonner sa recherche d'une famille. Il a commencé sa vie avec le sentiment d'être quelconque, pourtant toute son existence sera consacrée à combattre l'idée que quiconque puisse l'être. En quatre décennies, U2 passe d'une bande d'adolescents ambitieux au plus grand groupe au monde.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the English poet William Blake consists of a series of texts written in the style of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own beliefs. Composed between 1790 and 1793, the book makes reference to Milton and Swedenborg, and adopts a device from Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost: a visit to hell. Blake expresses a deliberately depolarized and unified vision of the cosmos in which the material world and physical desire are both part of the divine order.