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1919. Emily Ehrlich watches as two young airmen, Alcock and Brown, emerge from the carnage of the First World War to pilot the very first non-stop transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to the west of Ireland. Among the letters being carried on the aircraft is one which will not be opened for almost a hundred years. 1998. Senator George Mitchell criss-crosses the ocean in search of an elusive Irish peace. How many more bereaved mothers and grandmothers must he meet before an agreement can be reached? 1845.

Frederick Douglass, a black American slave, lands in Ireland to champion ideas of democracy and freedom, only to find a famine unfurling at his feet. On his travels he inspires a young maid to go to New York to embrace a free world, but the land does not always fulfill its promises for her. From the violent battlefields of the Civil War to the ice lakes of northern Missouri, it is her youngest daughter Emily who eventually finds her way back to Ireland.

Can we pass from the new world to the old? How does the past shape the future? In TransAtlantic, National Book Award-winning Colum McCann has achieved an outstanding act of literary bravura. Intricately crafted, poetic and deeply affecting it weaves together personal stories to explore the fine line between what is real and what is imagined, and the tangled skein of connections that make up our lives. 

Colm McCann spoke to Pat.

Transatlantic by Colum Mc Cann is published by Bloomsbury and is priced at £18.99.

By Jesse Norman (published by William Collins)

On hearing the name ‘Edmund Burke’, the first thing that many people remember is his most frequently anthologised passage from the Reflections on the Revolution in France about Marie Antoinette, which begins with the words: ‘It is sixteen or seventeen years since last I saw the Queen of France...’ Brian Friel’s character in Philadelphia, Here I Come, Gar O’Donnell quotes lines from Edmund Burke’s description of Marie-Antoinette as a defence against the onslaught of negative thoughts. Time and again through the pages of the play, Gar shouts out the words of Burke as if they were a mantra to lift his mind above the things that oppress him. MP, Jesse Norman also believes that Edmund Burke continues to have significance today. He says that both conservative and subversive, Burke’s beliefs have never been more relevant than in today’s ‘Big Society’. In his new book, Edmund Burke: Politician, Philosopher, Prophet, Jesse Norman explains that as a philosopher, statesman, and founder of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke is both the greatest and most under-rated political thinker of the past three-hundred years.

By Simon Loftus (Daunt Books)

In The Invention of Memory Simon Loftus presents us with a heady blend of family memoir with a history of Ireland, foregrounding the story of the Protestant Ascendancy families. What emerges however, is also a meditation on the nature of memory, as the tall tales, legends and ghost stories combine to form a narrative of shifting moods and viewpoints. It has been likened to an Irish Hare with Amber Eyes.

By Lionel Shriver (Harper Collins)

Lionel Shriver won the Orange prize for her novel We Need to Talk About Kevin in 2005, about a fictional school massacre, written from the perspective of the killer’s mother. Her new novel, Big Brother is inspired by the obesity that killed her brother and is written, once again from the perspective of a close family member – this time, from that of his sister.

She joined Pat this morning.

By Marin Chapman (Mainstream Publishing)

Marina Chapman was born in Colombia, South America around 1950. Marina lives in Yorkshire where she moved 30 years ago and has told her amazing story in her book “The Girl with No Name –The Incredible Story of a Child Raised By Monkeys”

Every decade creates its own tumult, positing leaders as heroes and villains. Margaret Thatcher is no exception – she provokes intense feeling, ranging from loyalty to loathing – often simultaneously, and the outpouring of both respect and enmity in Britain in the days and weeks after her death earlier this month highlight the polarising and difficult legacy she leaves behind.

Depicted as ‘The Iron Lady’, Thatcher’s political career has been one of the most remarkable of modern times. The daughter of a grocer, she rose to become the first woman to lead a major Western democracy and the longest serving British Prime Minister of the twentieth century. In a new biography of Thatcher, which has been described as, ‘immediately superseding all earlier books written about her’, Charles Moore attempts to make her into a three dimensional figure for the first time. The book gives unparalleled insight into her early life and formation, especially through her extensive correspondence with her sister, which Moore is the first author to draw on. It recreates brilliantly the atmosphere of British politics as she was making her way, and takes her up to what was arguably the zenith of her power, victory in the Falklands.

By George Mordaunt (Mercier Press)

During the Celtic Tiger George Mordaunt had it all. A booming motor dealership with four showrooms, selling 40 cars a week and offering free helicopter rides to his customers. But it all began to go wrong as sales dried up and the banks called in the money they were owed. He wrote his first book, Shepherd’s Pie about his experiences and his subsequent mental and financial recovery.

In his new book, Back in the Driving Seat, he shares his experiences and delivers a guide to recovery and tells us that now more than ever need to take control of their own future.

by Michael Burleigh (Macmillan)

It was Christmas Day, 1952, Frank Sinatra sang White Christmas to an exclusively white audience at Government House in Nairobi, the seat of British colonial rule in Kenya. Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly were in the audience — they were in Kenya to film Mogambo. Presiding over the occasion was the Governor of Kenya, the aristocratic Sir Evelyn Baring, accompanied by his wife Lady Molly, a woman so grand that, when she boarded the ship for Africa, mistaking the Admiral for a porter, she handed her handbag. This is one of the many insightful and comic stories in Small Wars, Far Away Places a new book by my next guest the Historian Michael Burleigh and he joined Pat on the line.

by Dr. Robert L. Leahy (Piatkus)

The unemployment rate in Ireland stands at almost 15% and is not set to fall over the next three years. As thousands of people struggle with being out of work, many more will lose their jobs. Losing your job can be one of the most difficult experiences that a person will face, so knowing how to cope with the time in between your last job and your next job will be important. Your unemployment can affect your marriage, make it difficult to handle your financial pressures, and make you feel hopeless, ashamed and sometimes even suicidal.

Dr Robert Leahy, internationally renowned psychologist and Director of The American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, has written a new book that aims to help the unemployed and their families cope more effectively during a difficult time. He joins us in studio today to discuss some of the strategies and ways people can cope in Keeping Your Head After Losing Your Job.