Soul Magic, A Century of Psychotherapy: Humanity’s continuing search for meaning
Engrossing, humane and intellectually ambitious exploration of how we try to understand ourselves
The Response: Former BBC editor brings home reality of climate change
Polemic shows UK is unprepared for environmental emergencies. Irish readers should feel nervous, too
Seamus Heaney’s translations: An exploration of a gifted work
Like Joyce, Heaney was keen to ‘dislodge’ his work from the single-perspective canon of English literature
The Cornucopia Story: Dublin’s wholefood institution is about much more than legumes
In Deirdre O’Mara McCafferty’s deeply moving memoir, food is indistinguishable from community, radical ideas and love
Country People: Small-town caper with larks aplenty
Daniel Mason’s latest novel is set New England with its hero a likable everyman struggling to finish his Phd
Reviews in brief: A very funny memoir and vital, ghastly testimonies from Gaza
New books by Keith Waldrop, Samar Yazbek and Jules Boykoff
The Red Mouth by Sheila Armstrong: A dazzling second novel as layered as the bog itself
This tremendous book is concerned with the impact of the past upon the present
Queenie is Working On It: A confident comeback that delivers on the promise
Candice Carty-Williams offers the reader an abundance of humour and heart
The Celtic World: A History – Were they superstitious, warlike hotheads as often depicted?
John Waddell takes the reader on a deeply personal tour and makes for the perfect guide
Opening Night by Sara Baume: Deep insights into her own psyche, with respect for the creative process
Writer crafts a book from a friendship she builds with American painter Mollie Douthit, and interrogates herself as to her motivations
Drunken Driving by Martina Evans: Sonnets from a prison
Evans’s latest work can be read as part of her ongoing inquiry into the ways we survive in a world of vampiric thirst and intoxicated protocol
Summer YA reads: from a Snow White who’d prefer not to to same-sex love-love on the tennis court
Books by Cindy Pham, Wren James, Edward Schmidt, Tom Ramsay and Kai Spellmeier
Nuala O’Faolain: Are You Somebody? Honesty that’s compelling and at times unsettling
Late writer’s memoir is equally striking in its treatment of female desire and the need to be seen
A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of the Movies – big screen questions
David Thompson, having devoted his life to writing about film, suggests the medium has begun to diminish our very nature
The German-Russian Century by Stefan Creuzberger: Impressive account of an age-old enmity
A deeply researched yet readable survey of Slav-Teuton antagonisms from the late 1800s to the present
The Beautiful Death of Ozzy Osbourne: Sympathy for the metal
Keith Kahn-Harris does his subject matter a great service in a book that is not just about the Black Sabbath frontman, but about legacy and mortality too
The 21st-Century Brain by Hannah Critchlow: How to maintain mental acuity in this digital era
While the technical reasons are convincingly explained, they feel like basic common sense
A Better Locksmith by Jane Coyle: Chronicle of an astonishingly fecund time in the theatre of Northern Ireland
The critic’s love and care shine through in this compendium of her theatre writing from 1984 to the present
Books in brief: Catholicism: End or Beginning?, The Lobster Pot, and Family Friends
Works by Mary Daly, Bernie McQuillan and Chloë Ashby
Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens: Shockingly retrograde
This is a portrait of a mother with a stunningly unfeminist approach to mothering and all of her personal relationships
Château Rouge by Amit Chaudhuri: a different take on Paris
Ninth novel from Indian author questions expectations and notions of ‘classic’ French ideal
The Devoted by Catherine Cho: A ravishing debut novel about sorrows of the heart
As in The Godfather, the characters are bound not just by crime and family, but because they are immigrants
The Blind Spot by Jeffrey Winters: Big ideas to combat oligarchy and tax dodging
The author argues that democracy is built to facilitate abject inequality, not to combat it
Flick by Kate Lister: Lively and funny deep-dive into the history of female pleasure
Lister argues that women have never been less sexual than men, but the narrative has been controlled with a firm male grip
Deborah Lutz’s fresh biography of Emily Brontë is a worthy celebration of a unique author
This Dark Night: The Life of Emily Brontë benefits from access to the writer’s rediscovered poetry notebook and Lutz’s expert reappraisals of her poems
Best new children’s books: From laugh-out-loud ghost stories to football-themed fables
New fiction from Emily Hourican, Catherine Doyle, Ciara O’Connor, Shane Hegarty, Christopher Galvin, Mitch Johnson, Matt Oldfield, Gordon D’Arcy and Paul Howard
New poetry: Rachel Long’s boisterous follow-up; imaginative panache from Billy Ramsell
Mícheál McCann reviews new collections by Rachel Long, Billy Ramsell, Máighréad Medbh and Moyra Donaldson
Imitation Games by Darragh McGee: Football in the grip of a gambling addiction
There are plenty of villains in the Donegal writer’s authoritative probe on how gambling has infected soccer’s soul
Full Circle: A History of Cricket – a discussion of the sport’s politics, stars and memorable matches
Authors Richard Heller and Peter Oborne bat for the greatest thing on God’s Earth in this well-researched book
Presence: A Hidden History of the Female Body - the rage of this writing must continue
There was, the author writes, ‘no history of what had happened to me’ or historical women, of ‘experiences long considered to be too private... to be admitted as true history’
Collapse by Édouard Louis: A brother’s life
Final instalment in French author’s family cycle project reconfigures the nature of autobiography
Reviews in brief: Irish Stories; Fieldwork as a Sex Object; and Catholicism: End or Beginning?
New books from Christopher Morash, Meena Kandasamy and Mary Daly
When the Revolution Comes: Exposing corporate America’s skulduggery
Modern-day Grapes of Wrath describes how Chris Smalls set out to unionise Amazon warehouse workers
Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer: High jinks in the Tuscan countryside
Author of Less returns with a warm, hopeful novel set in Italy
Scotland, edited by Kathleen Jamie & Don Paterson: Dour, oh dour
‘What a glum mood runs through this anthology’
Tonight the Music Seems So Loud – The Meaning of George Michael: a sharp and smart analysis
Critic Sathnam Sanghera responds to a feeling there has never been a serious examination of George Michael the music-maker
Local history: Empowering women, a Quaker education, and a varied tasting menu of church longevity
A History of Down High School, 200 years of the Impartial Reporter, and A History of First Presbyterian Church Armagh
The Coast of Everything by Guillermo Stitch: commendably brave but frustrating
Rather than being transported by this 750-pager, one has the sense of being trapped within an elaborate in-joke
Hey Man by Andrew Meehan: A lyrical novel full of movingly insightful observations
Although some might find the style of this novel about the love between two male friends a little too florid, the author pulls it off
Doing Good - How Ethical Capitalism Can Save Liberal Democracy: provocative, original but sometimes implausible
Book features an account of disruption and changes confronting societies - the author is emphatic that further upheaval is not the answer
My Greatest Race by Ciara Mageean review: A memoir about athletics, cancer and identity
Mageean’s memoir is a testament to determination, ambition and resilience
How Lucy Grealy created one of the most powerful patient narratives ever written
Autobiography of a Face details with visceral accuracy one woman’s experience of living with rare bone cancer
Translated fiction: Tie Ning’s The Passage of Roses is a deeply impressive accomplishment
Plus works by Sara Mesa; Inès Cagnati; Eugenia Ladra; Eva Vezhnavets; and Alejandra Kamiya
Fantastic Kingdom by Helene von Bismarck: Knowledgeable treatise on harm done by Brexit
A writer perfectly placed to examine the impact of this ‘act of self-harm’
The Butterfly Season by Lea Korsgaard: A Danish journalist catches the bug
The author sets out to track down all the 65 native species of butterfly in a single summer
The End of Everything by M John Harrison: A rudderless spin on the post-apocalyptic story
Sci-fi tale is a memorable, haunting work, but stop-start narrative makes it hard for readers to engage
The Ballad of Ronan McCoy by Colin Morgan: An empathetic and thoughtful debut from actor
A tender coming-of-age novel about friendship, grief and the difficult work of carrying on
Reviews in brief: The Magical Writings of W.B. Yeats, On Land and Water and The Nun of Ravensbrück
New books from John Michael Greer, Sheena Jolley, D.J. O’Sullivan and Cathi Fleming
Judy Blume: A Life by Mark Oppenheimer - A quirky and comprehensive biography
Most vivid sections of this biography concern Blume’s early years
To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage: A jubilant cosmic coming of age
It’s refreshing to read a novel that addresses life’s difficulties without being tormented
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