The Golden Road by William Dalrymple: India at its most influential was open, tolerant and receptive to ideas
Ancient India gave the world the decimal system, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, medicine, metallurgy, astronomy and even the dreaded algorithm
A History of Irish Magic: Occultism of national life explored
Sally and James North suggest the Druidic tradition and Brehon Law enshrined magic in Gaelic culture and injected public affairs with mysticism
Pierre Joannon, Graham Greene, Ireland and the Honorary Consul: A view from the South of France
Greene’s experience of post-Civil War Dublin paints a sombre picture: ‘Grafton Street and Sackville Street would disgrace an English country town, and beggars are as numerous as in a continental port’
The Red Emperor. Xi Jinping and the New China: An exceptional Machiavellian operator
A hard-drinking womaniser whose political skills have not been matched by competence in governance?
Local history: Cartoonish cruelty betrays a fundamentalist who would not cotton on
The Reverend Psychopath: Suffer Little Children, Terror, Tears and Tragedy: The Mount Cashells and the Notorious Divorce Case of 1876, and Under the Metal Man: Sligo in Yeats
How to Be a Citizen by Cindy L Skach: Has too much law withered democracy?
The central, compelling argument is that public space is a vital but sorely neglected component of a functioning democracy
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner: Fun, devastating, far more urgent than a typical thriller
Kushner swerves between profound wisdom, humour and glimpses of humanity’s path toward disaster
Frankie by Graham Norton: Goodbye William Trevor, hello Barbara Cartland
Reminiscent of Danielle Steel, this is not challenging, educational or remotely convincing but it is entertaining
The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading by Sam Leith - monumental and invigorating
Patricia Craig admires this assured scrutiny of literature for younger people
Crime fiction: New books by Attica Locke, James R Benn, Michael Russell, Stuart Neville and Ian McDonald
Our latest round-up includes novels involving US dystopia, post-liberation Paris, Nazi Germany, serial murderers and folk horror
Love Me! By Marianne Power: Fruits of a five-year love and sexual liberation pilgrimage is illuminating
Hilarious exploration of non-monogamous love, sex and childfreeness offers feast of insights
The Revelation of Ireland: 1995-2020 by Diarmaid Ferriter - A hugely valuable exploration of a rollercoaster time
Book shows that even as Ireland has changed, its biggest problems remain ‘deep-rooted and historical’
Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan – A pulpy approach that provides facile answers
JFK recruited teenage interns to have sex with and pass around to his friends. Why is he remembered as one of the best presidents in US history?
The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke: A case that changed the history of transplant surgery in the UK
The moving story about how the lives of two nine-year-olds became entwined around a single heart
Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd: Compelling thriller set in the murky underworld of the cold war
This is a complex, credible and compulsive novel from an author who deserves more critical appreciation than he has received
Our London Lives: a masterful work full of skilful nuance and profound truth
Christine Dwyer Hickey’s 10th novel charts a tumultuous relationship between two young Irish outsiders struggling to survive in 1970s London
Chernobyl Roulette - A War Story, by Serhii Plokhy: Gripping and unsettling account of Russian misadventure
Nuclear plant foreman and technicians stayed at posts despite the risks because they understood what was at stake, and slowly turned the tables on their oppressors
Mother State: Care scrutinised as an explicitly political and public act
Helen Charman’s political history of motherhood is jaw-droppingly impressive in its scope
Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers: Extraordinary insights into so-called ordinary lives
Chambers writes with honesty about human experience and the redemptive power of love
The Voyage Home by Pat Barker: An epic domestic drama amid the pointless machinations of war
Barker’s latest reimagining of Greek myth feels glaringly compelling and urgent
Munichs by David Peace: This towering requiem about the Manchester United aircraft disaster is a masterpiece
For all its fidelity to events and people, the novel reads like something dreamed
Together Standing Tall by John Scally and Blood & Thunder by Liam O’Callaghan: Worthwhile rugby reads
Book reviews: If Together Standing Tall will probably end up in every rugby committee room, Blood and Thunder should be on every team bus
Oppressive regimes and first love: Key teenage themes captured in September’s best YA fiction
A round-up of exciting new works by Moira Buffini, Neil Taylor, Zainab Boladale, Maggie Horne and Meg Rosoff
Liars by Sarah Manguso: A deft portrait of a dysfunctional marriage of unequals
Jane is a successful writer while her husband, John, is a failed artist turned embittered entrepreneur who upends their relationship
The Island: WH Auden and the Last of Englishness by Nicholas Jenkins – Opening the lid on a hermetically sealed sex life
Rather than contextualisation of the lives of gay middle-class men in the 1920s and 1930s, Jenkins offers doggedly Freudian readings of Auden’s poems
Prequel by Rachel Maddow: A rip-roaring account of American fascists that comes at the cost of historical analysis
Author offers a rip-roaring account of the eccentrics who plotted to aid Hitler, but it is problematic to view this as a ‘prequel’ to Trumpism
Irish Food History, A Companion: An 850-page serving that leaves you wanting more
Collection with many original and fascinating essays represents a useful step towards understanding how Ireland is perhaps finally emerging from the shadow of the Famine
‘Getting the Words Right’: A Festschrift in Honour of Eamon Maher – Depth as well as warmth
This is a most fitting tribute to a true powerhouse in Irish and Franco-Irish Studies
Amuse Bouche by Carolyn Boyd: A paean to all things culinary in her beloved France
Author balances gushing enthusiasm with morbid humour in survey of France and its foods
Don’t Look Back in Ongar: Ross O’Carroll-Kelly says an emotional, unexpectedly touching farewell
The plot is farcical on the surface, but the absurdity of Ross’s life cloaks the relatable beneath
My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss: A bleak, often brilliant personal history
The desire to be worthy, or the fear of not being worthy enough, is explored in this moving memoir
Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain by William and Jim Reid – pleasantly spiky, unpleasantly needy
Sort-of autobiography of the band recounts the lives of its founding members, William and Jim Reid, in their own voices
Finding Mangan review: Innovative biography breathes vivid life into elusive poet
Bridget Hourican redefines biography in her engaging capture of neglected Famine poet James Clarence Mangan
New poetry: Paul Muldoon; Rory Waterman; Katie Donovan; and Harry Josephine Giles
Vona Groarke reviews Joy In Service on Rue Tagore; Come Here To This Gate; May Swim; Them
The New India. The Unmaking of the World’s Largest Democracy: a country with a very dark side
Being outnumbered by Muslims is a constant Hindu fear. Add to that Narendra Modi’s increasingly autocratic rule and what emerges is very far from a shiny India
Who Killed Una Lynskey? by Mick Clifford – Garda heavy gang under the spotlight in the investigations of two disturbing 1970s murders
The author claims the infamous Garda squad decided on the narrative in the cases of Una Lynskey and Marty Kerrigan and built the evidence around it
Modernism in Irish Women’s Writing review: Great insights into work of female writers
Paige Reynolds argues women tend to adopt apparently realist modes of fiction but that experimentalism still creeps in
The Watermark by Sam Mills: Bizarre and dizzying novel-within-a-novel
Audacious narrative is filled with engaging characters and entertaining dialogue
Best new children’s fiction, from a crime-fighting duck to an inspiring introduction to art
The Tall Man by Mary Cathleen Brown; Evil Duck and the Feather of Fortune by Chris Judge; Cath Howe’s Muffin and the Shipwreck; Olivia Hope’s Little Lion Girl; This Book Will Make You An Artist by Ruth Millington; and First Term at Fernside by Sheena Wilkinson
The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable: An imaginative reconstruction of the life of the most celebrated virtuosa you’ve never heard of
Anna Maria della Pietà, a protegee of Vivaldi, is portrayed as having a synaesthetic appreciation of music as a spectrum of colours
The Invention of Charlotte Brontë by Graham Watson: How the influential 1857 biography of the writer took on a life of its own
Watson’s generally close adherence to the biographer Elizabeth Gaskell’s viewpoint enables effective narrative structuring, but excludes further exploration
Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan: ‘Companion’ novel to The Spinning Heart is a welcome return
Ryan’s prose is a masterclass in balance, which lets him get away with lines that could seem overwrought in less capable hands
Well, Holy God by Patsy McGarry: An eternal life as a religious correspondent in turbulent times for Irish Catholicism
McGarry is notably fair to all sides, despite him often being perceived by many insiders as a liberal crusader intent on damaging the Catholic Church
Accidental by Tim James: Scientific breakthroughs that only occurred because of slip-ups, disaster and chance
A grisly accident that resulted in part of someone’s brain being sliced out became a foundation stone for the emerging field of neuroscience
Translated fiction: books by Stefanie vor Schulte, Atsuhiro Yoshida, Maddalena Vaglio Tanet, Adèle Rosenfeld, Gerbrand Bakker and Fríða Ísberg
Reviewed: Boy with A Black Rooster; Goodnight Tokyo; Untold Stories; Jellyfish Have No Ears; The Hairdresser’s Son; and The Mark
Wife review: A spiky tale of love and hate between two women in academia
Charlotte Mendelson has written an intriguing and darkly hilarious book about the collapse of a relationship
The Last Disco: Stardust story puts families and survivors centre stage, validating their truth with empathy and humanity
Authors Sean Murray, Christine Bohan and Nicky Ryan have conducted extensive research into records going back more than half a century, and spent long hours interviewing many of those involved in the justice campaign
Behind You is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj: A humane portrayal of Palestinian life
An intricately woven mosaic novel which humanises Palestinian stories
Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J Bass - Essential reading
Bass is the ideal teller of this important story, as he combines elegance of language with wonderful forensic skill, bringing out how different the war in Asia was
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise review: Gardens excavated as agents of wider world change
Olivia Laing digs into horticulture and gardening to unearth a philosophy of ethics and growth
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