Gift reads - best books to buy this Christmas

Stuck for a present idea this Christmas? Trust us, you can never, ever go wrong with a book.

Read on for a choice selection of the best books that have landed on RTÉ Culture's over the past few months, from thrillers to memoirs and kids' reads - there's literally something for everyone.

NEW IRISH WRITING

Life Without Children by Roddy Doyle (Vintage)

Love and marriage. Children and family. Death and grief. Life touches everyone the same. But living under lockdown, it changes us alone... A man abroad wanders the stag-and-hen-strewn streets of Newcastle, as news of the virus at home asks him to question his next move. An exhausted nurse struggles to let go, having lost a much-loved patient in isolation. A middle-aged son, barred from his mother's funeral, wakes to an oncoming hangover of regret... In ten short stories, mostly written over the last year, Roddy Doyle paints a collective portrait of our strange times.

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Listen: Roddy Doyle talks Life Without Children to RTÉ Arena

A Galway Epiphany by Ken Bruen (Head Of Zeus)

Jack Taylor has finally traded in his violent life in Galway for a quiet retirement in the country. But on a day trip back into the city, Jack is hit by a truck and left in a coma, mysteriously without a scratch on him. When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called 'Miracle of Galway'. People have become convinced that the two children who tended to him are saintly, and the site of the accident sacred. The Catholic Church isn't so sure, and Jack is commissioned to help find the children – to verify the miracle or expose the stunt. But Jack isn't the only one looking for these children, and he'll need all the help he can get – and a stiff drink of Jameson – once he finds them...

Blank Pages and Other Stories by Bernard MacLaverty (Vintage)

Blank Pages is a collection of twelve new stories that show the emotional range of a master. Blackthorns, for instance, tells of a poor out-of-work Catholic man who falls gravely ill in the sectarian Northern Ireland of 1942 but is brought back from the brink by an unlikely saviour. The most recently written story here is The End of Days, which imagines the last moments in the life of painter Egon Schiele, watching his wife dying of Spanish flu - the world's worst pandemic, until now. Everywhere, the dark currents of violence, persecution and regret pull at his subject matter: family love, the making of art, Catholicism, the Troubles and, latterly, ageing. Each story MacLaverty writes creates a universe.

Listen: RTÉ Arena talks to Bernard MacLaverty about Blank Pages and Other Stories

The Party Crasher by Sophie Kinsella (Transworld)

Effie's still not over her parents splitting up a year ago, and her dad and his new girlfriend are posting photos everywhere (with the hashtags #viagraworks and #sexinyoursixties). Now they're selling the beloved family home and holding a 'house-cooling' party, but Effie hasn't been invited. Then she remembers her precious Russian dolls, safely tucked away up a chimney, and has no choice but to go back for them. She'll just creep in, grab the dolls and leave. No one will know she was ever there. But Effie can't find the dolls. And as she secretly clambers around dusty attics, hides under tables and tries (and fails) to avoid bumping into her ex-boyfriend, she discovers unexpected truths about her family - and even about herself....

The Pawnbroker's Reward by Declan O'Rourke (Gill)

Declan O'Rourke's powerful 2017 album Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine illuminated an extraordinary series of eye-witness accounts, including the story of Pádraig and Cáit ua Buachalla. For his meticulously researched literary debut, the story of the ua Buachalla family is woven into a powerful, multilayered work showing us the famine as it happened through the lens of a single town – Macroom, Co. Cork – and its environs.

Listen: Marty Whelan chats to Declan O' Rourke about The Pawnbrokers Reward

Dinner Party - A Tragedy by Sarah Gilmartin (One)

Kate has taught herself to be careful, to be meticulous. To mark the anniversary of a death in the family, she plans a dinner party – from the fancy table settings to the perfect Baked Alaska waiting in the freezer. Yet by the end of the night, old tensions have flared, the guests have fled, and Kate is spinning out of control. But all we have is ourselves, her father once said - all we have is family... Read an extract from Dinner Party - A Tragedy here.

Listen: Sarah Gilmartin talks Dinner Party - A Tragedy with RTÉ Arena

April In Spain - John Banville (Faber)

On the idyllic coast of San Sebastian, Spain, Dublin pathologist Quirke is struggling to relax - despite the beaches, the cafes and the company of his disarmingly lovely wife. So when he glimpses a familiar face in the twilight at the bar Las Acadas, it's hard, at first, to tell whether his imagination is just running away with him. Because this young woman can't be April Latimer. April Latimer was murdered by her brother, years ago - the conclusion to an unspeakable scandal that shook one of Ireland's foremost political dynasties. Unable to ignore his instincts, Quirke makes a call back home to Ireland and soon Detective St John Strafford is dispatched to Spain. But he's not the only one on route: as a relentless hitman hunts down his latest prey, they are all set for a brutal showdown...

Listen: John Banville talks April in Spain on RTÉ Arena

INTERNATIONAL FICTION

Bewilderment by Richard Powers (Hutchinson / Heinmann)

At the heart of this Pulitzer Prize-winning and Booker Prize-longlisted novel lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet? Theo Byrne is a promising young scientist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son Robin is funny, loving and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from school for smashing his friend's face with a thermos. What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, all while fostering his son's desperate attempt to save this one...

Watch: Richard Powers reads from Bewilderment

A Line To Kill by Anthony Horowitz (Century)

The author of The Word Is Murder and The Sentence Is Death returns with his third whodunit featuring detectives Hawthorne and Horowitz - a satire on the world of books and a locked-room mystery. When Hawthorne and Horowitz are invited to an exclusive literary festival on an idyllic island off the south coast of England, they don't expect to find themselves in the middle of murder investigation—or to be trapped with a cold-blooded killer in a remote place with a murky, haunted past...

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins (Doubleday)

A twisty-turny tale of deceit, murder, and revenge from the author of The Girl on the Train... When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat, it triggers questions about three women who knew him. Laura is the troubled one-night-stand last seen in the victim's home. Carla is his grief-stricken aunt, already mourning the recent death of yet another family member. And Miriam is the nosy neighbor clearly keeping secrets from the police. Three women with separate connections to the victim. Three women who are – for different reasons – simmering with resentment. Who are, whether they know it or not, burning to right the wrongs done to them. When it comes to revenge, even good people might be capable of terrible deeds. How long can secrets smolder before they explode into flame?

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Watch: Paula Hawkins on creating characters for A Slow Fire Burning

The Every by Dave Eggers (Hamish Hamilton)

Or, to use the full title, The Every, or At Last a Sense of Order, or The Final Days of Free Will or Limitless Choice is Killing the World. When the world's largest search engine / social media company merges with the planet's dominant e-commerce site, it creates the richest and most dangerous-and, oddly enough, most beloved-monopoly ever known: The Every... The follow-up to Dave Eggers' novel The Circle is both a merciless satire and a chilling parable for our tech-riddled age.

Watch: Dave Eggers on The Every

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian (Harvill Seeker)

Meet Chloe. First-year student, ordinary, legging-wearing, girl next door... and psychopath. Chloe is part of a secret clinical study of young psychopaths run by the university's Psychology Department. Most psychopaths aren't criminals, but when a string of murders on campus causes upheaval, Chloe's private vendetta is sidelined. Partnered with fellow study participants she can't trust - and distracted by typical university life - Chloe has to walk the line between hunter and prey...

Learwife by JR Thorp (Canongate)

The untold story of King Lear's wife is lyrically imagined in JM Thorp's acclaimed debut novel. Word has come. Care-bent King Lear is dead, driven mad and betrayed. His three daughters too, broken in battle. But someone has survived: Lear's queen. Exiled to a nunnery years ago, written out of history, her name forgotten. Now she can tell her story. Though her grief and rage may threaten to crack the earth open, she knows she must seek answers. Why was she sent away in shame and disgrace? What has happened to Kent, her oldest friend and ally? And what will become of her now, in this place of women?

Reputation by Sarah Vaughan (Simon & Schuster)

As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career—including her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, Flora. A former teacher, the glare of the spotlight is unnerving for Emma, particularly when it leads to countless insults, threats, and trolling as she tries to work in the public eye. As a woman, she knows her reputation is worth its weight in gold but as a politician, she discovers it only takes one slip-up to destroy it completely. Fourteen-year-old Flora is learning the same hard lessons at school as she encounters heartless bullying. When another teenager takes her own life, Emma lobbies for a new law to protect women and girls from the effects of online abuse. Now, Emma and Flora find their personal lives uncomfortably intersected…but then the unthinkable happens... Sarah Vaughan's earlier psychological thriller Anatomy of a Scandal is soon to be a Netflix series. Reputation might just follow suit.

NON-FICTION

Taste by Stanley Tucci

Actor Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen table. Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about his growing up in Westchester, New York; preparing for and shooting the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia; falling in love over dinner; and teaming up with his wife to create meals for a multitude of children.

Love in a Time of War: My Years with Robert Fisk by Lara Marlowe (Apollo)

Lara Marlowe first met Robert Fisk in 1983, in Damascus. He was already a famous war correspondent; she was a young American reporter, who would soon become a renowned journalist in her own right. For the next twenty years, they were lovers, husband and wife, friends, occasionally estranged from and angry with each other. They learned from each other and from the people in the ruined world they reported from: Lebanon, torn apart by a vicious civil war as well as Israeli and Syrian occupations; Iran, where they were the only journalists to interview the Middle East's chief hostage-taker and dispatcher of suicide bombers; the deadly Islamist revolt that claimed up to 200,000 lives in Algeria; the disintegration of former Yugoslavia and two US-led wars on Iraq. Even after they separated, they remained friends and wrote and spoke to each other affectionately. Marlowe's memoir is at once a portrait of a remarkable man by a woman who loved him, the story of a Middle East broken by its own divisions and outside powers, and an account of a relationship in dark times.

Listen: Sunday with Miriam - Lara Marlowe chats to Miriam O'Callaghan

A State Of Emergency by Richard Chambers (Harper Collins)

In 2020 Ireland was launched into a state of turmoil, with the Government scrambling to handle the arrival of a virus that would see the already strained healthcare system buckle under the weight of the responsibility foisted upon it. The National Public Health Emergency Team was sent into overdrive, while thousands became unemployed as businesses around the country closed their doors. Woven from a wealth of original research and dozens of interviews with ministers, politicians, public health experts, essential workers, and ordinary people on whom the crisis exacted a personal toll, Richard Chambers' book presents the story of Ireland's response to the most significant public health emergency of the past century, and a year that brought Ireland to the brink and back.

How To Be A Rock Star by Shaun Ryder (Allen & Unwin)

As lead singer of Happy Mondays and Black Grape, Shaun Ryder was the Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of his generation. A rebel who formed and led not one but two seminal bands, he's had number-one albums, been a figurehead of the Madchester scene, headlined the Glastonbury Festival, toured the world numerous times, taken every drug under the sun, been through rehab - and came out the other side as an unlikely national treasure and reality TV star in the UK. Now comes his swaggering account of just what it takes to be a rock star...

I Live a Life Like Yours by Jan Grue (Pushkin Press)

Jan Grue was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at the age of three. Shifting between specific periods of his life—his youth with his parents and sister in Norway; his years of study in Berkeley, St. Petersburg, and Amsterdam; and his current life as a professor, husband, and father—he intersperses these histories with reflections on the world, social structures, disability, loss, relationships, and the body: in short, on what it means to be human. Along the way, Grue moves between his own story and those of others, incorporating reflections on philosophy, film, art, and the work of writers from Joan Didion to Michael Foucault.

Watch: Jan Grue on the human quest for perfection

We Go into Action Today at Noon by Eamonn Duggan (O'Brien Press)

Offering a fascinating view of a vital period in Irish history, from 1913 to Independence, and based on statements made by nearly 2,000 people between 1947 and 1957 about their role in Ireland's fight for freedom, Eamonn Duggan explores the individual contributions of these remarkable people, and what they add to the history we thought we knew. Read an extract here.

It's Marty by Marty Morrissey (Transworld)

GAA broadcaster extraordinaire Marty Morrissey has been to every corner of Ireland (and a few interesting ones further afield) in his illustrious career. Everywhere he goes, he makes friends and hears terrific stories - and sometimes he becomes a character in them. Now he's sharing them; starting with his childhood in the Bronx and west Clare, Marty introduces us to the people and places that have mattered most to him. He takes us through his adventures as a Gaelic footballer and hurler, schoolteacher, and coach of schools teams and underage sides for his beloved club, Kilmurry Ibrickane. And he tells the story of his remarkable rise as a broadcaster, from the back of tractors and trailers flatbed trucks to Croke Park on All Ireland finals days - despite having being told by RTÉ Sport that his voice on an early audition tape was 'too thin, too high-pitched'!

Watch: Marty Morrissey on moving to Clare from New York - The Tommy Tiernan Show

The Year Of Chaos by Malachi O'Doherty (Atlantic)

In the eleven months between August 1971 and July 1972, Northern Ireland experienced its worst year of violence. No future year of the Troubles experienced such death and destruction. During this whole period, Malachi O'Doherty was a young reporter in Belfast, working in the city and returning home at night to a no-go area behind the barricades where the streets were patrolled by armed IRA men. Drawing on interviews, personal recollections and archival research, O'Doherty takes readers on a journey through the events of that terrible year - from the devastation of Bloody Sunday and Bloody Friday to the talks between leaders that failed to break the deadlock - which, he argues, should serve as a stark reminder of how political and military miscalculation can lead a country to the brink of civil war.

Openhearted by Ann Ingle (Penguin)

At 20 Londoner Ann Ingle fell madly in love with an Irish fellow she met on holiday in Cornwall. At the church to arrange their shotgun wedding she discovered that he hadn't even told her his real name. Sixty-odd years later Ann looks back on that first glorious fall and in a series of essays considers what she has learned from the life that followed - bringing eight children into the world, their father's years of mental illness and tragic death at 40, being a cash-strapped single mother in 1980s Dublin, coming into her own in her middle years - going to college, working and writing, and continuing to evolve and learn into her ninth decade, even as she accepts the realities of being 'old'.

Listen: Ann Ingle talks to Ray D'Arcy

Tea For One by Alice Taylor (O'Brien Press)

Some people are home alone by choice, while others, like legendary author Alice Taylor, journeyed into it through a change of circumstances. In Tea for One, Alice discovers the challenges and pleasures of living alone...

A Life in Trauma by Chris Luke (Gill)

Concern. Compassion. Doubt. Despair. Anger. Hope. Imagine juggling these feelings every day in a situation where your ability to manage them could be the difference between life and death. For Dr Chris Luke, a consultant in emergency medicine, these experiences are an intrinsic part of the job - ranging from rage at a system that often leaves vulnerable people waiting anxiously, to the incomparable satisfaction of relieving patients' suffering and distress and making a real difference in people’s lives and in society. In A Life in Trauma, Dr Luke reveals his own journey from orphanage boy to one of the leading emergency physicians in the country.

Vow Of Silence by Suzanne Walsh (Mardle)

Suzanne Walsh suffered five heart attacks and made it through open heart surgery. But even that pales in comparison to the horrors she faced as a young girl. Her childhood became the stuff of nightmares after her father passed away and her mother, unable to get a job in Ireland, had to seek work in London. So 'Mammy' was forced into the heartbreaking decision to put Suzanne and her five siblings into church-run orphanages in Dublin while she worked away. It was just meant to be temporary. Her life soon became a daily struggle to avoid beatings with canes and rosary beads. This is the late Suzanne Walsh's heartbreaking true story.

Shared Notes by Martin Hayes (Transworld)

Fiddle virtuoso Martin Hayes spent his childhood on a farm in County Clare, in a household steeped in musical tradition. After a free-spirited youth, he headed to the United States where he built a career that led to a life of musical performance on stages all over the world - Hayes has toured and recorded with guitarist Dennis Cahill for over twenty years, founded the Irish-American band The Gloaming, The Martin Hayes Quartet and The Common Ground Ensemble. Shared Notes tells Hayes' story of getting to the heart of the music.

Listen: Sunday with Miriam talks to Martin Hayes about Shared Notes

Comrades: A Lifetime Of Friendships by Rosia Boland (Doubleday)

In this essay collection, award-winning journalist Rosita Boland explores the many friendships that have shaped her life. She writes about the imaginary friends of early childhood, books that have provided companionship and joy, kindred spirits met while travelling, the friend she hoped might become something more, and also the friendships that become lost over time. It's a powerful exploration of what it is to live, to connect, and to be human in this world.

Listen: Dave Fanning talks Comrades with Rosita Boland

The Wolf Age by Tore Skeie (Pushkin Press)

In the eleventh century, the rulers of the lands surrounding the North Sea are all hungry for power. To get power they need soldiers, to get soldiers they need silver, and to get silver there is no better way than war and plunder. This vicious cycle draws all the lands of the north into a brutal struggle for supremacy and survival that will shatter kingdoms and forge an empire. The Wolf Age takes the reader on a journey through the bloody shared history of England and Scandinavia, and on across early medieval Europe, from the wild Norwegian fjords to the wealthy cities of Muslim Andalusia. Warfare, plotting, backstabbing and bribery abound as Tore Skeie weaves sagas and skaldic poetry with breathless dramatization to bring the world of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons to vivid life.

The Colour Of Ireland by Rob Cross (BW)

With introductions by Diarmaid Ferriter and Donal Fallon, Rob Cross's remarkable book spans more than a hundred years throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, bringing Irish history back to life using contemporary photographs as the basis for full-colour digital renditions. Utilizing over 150 photographs of Irish life covering all 32 counties, the book showcases Ireland's people and its most picturesque villages and townlands, and the fast-emerging cities of Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford City. The book also captures photos of Ireland's most turbulent times, from the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War.

CHILDREN AND YA READERS

A Hug For You by David King (Penguin)

Nothing warms us up quite like a hug, but what can we do when we can't be together? Adam King stole the hearts of the nation when he introduced us to his Virtual Hug on the Late Late Toy Show - now this picture book, inspired by true events and written by his father David, tells the story of one little boy with a big idea that came straight from the heart.

King Henry by Paul O'Flynn (Gill)

Following the success of his Johnny Sexton biography Go Johnny Go, RTÉ's Paul O'Flynn tackles the man many call the greatest hurling player of all time... There are parts of Ireland where hurling is life. Luckily for young Henry Shefflin, his home village of Ballyhale in Co. Kilkenny is one such place. Henry is from a hurling stronghold where every thought is about the next point, the next goal, the next match. But there's only one match anyone talks about come September - the All-Ireland Final. Can Henry be as good a hurler as his father and brothers? Can he train hard and overcome injuries and disappointments to one day play at Croke Park for his beloved county? (Spoiler alert: yes!)

Paul O'Flynn, with his book 'King Henry'

Precious Catastrophe by Deirdre Sullivan (Hot Key Books)

In this sequel to Deirdre Sullivan's acclaimed YA fantasy Perfectly Preventable Deaths, Catlin and Madeline are extraordinary sisters, living extraordinary lives - in a place that seems entirely ordinary, but which in fact seethes with secrets, both sacred and sinister. Ballyfran is a village where, for centuries, people who are not quite human have gathered. Catlin has already fallen foul of one such creature - a dark, vicious predator who almost killed her - and only Madeline giving up a part of her own soul was able to bring Catlin back from the brink of death. Now, the girls are making their strange new lives: Catlin, haunted by what happened to her, is isolated and bereft; Madeline is learning ancient magics under the tutelage of local wise woman Mamo. Learning that magic isn't mindfulness and hats. It's work - hard work. And Madeline knows she has to keep watch. On her sister. On the things that happen. Notice things before they start to happen. And before long, they do...

Kay's Marvellous Medicine by Adam Kay (Penguin)

The olden days were pretty fun if you liked wearing chainmail or chopping people's heads off, but there was one tiny little problem back then... doctors didn't have the slightest clue about how our bodies worked. In this gross and gruesome (and fun) history of the human body from the author of Kay's Anatomy, it's time to find out why ancient Egyptians thought the brain was just a useless load of old stuffing that might as well be chucked in the bin, why teachers forced their pupils to smoke cigarettes, why hairdressers would cut off their customers' legs, and why people used to get paid for farting - seriously. You'll also get answers to big questions like: Why did patients gargle with wee? How did a doctor save people's lives using a washing machine, a can of beans and some old sausages? And what exactly was the great stink?

Lily's Dream by Judi Curtin (O'Brien Press)

In the latest installment of Judi Curtin's popular Lissadell series (illustrated by Rachel Corcoran), we follow the the further adventures of Curtin's heroine Lily: life as a maid in Lissadell House - circa 1914 - is always interesting, but with friendships under strain, a war in Europe starting and uncertainty about her future, she needs all her wits about her!

Watch: Judi Curtin reads from Lily's Dream: A Lissadell Story

Noni and the Great Chawwwklit Mystery by Dermot Whelan (Gill)

Today FM DJ Dermot Whelan brings his popular radio character to the page, in her first book-length adventure. Meet Noni. She's a crazy old, law-breaking, chocolate-selling, pram-wielding, wickedly funny woman who likes nothing more than a dangerous caper! Someone has tampered with the city's supply of chocolate and now Noni and her young friends must find out who did it before the evil tricksters poison the whole town - including the dreamy rugby star, Chunks McSturdy. Can Noni and her pram of seriously dodgy treats overcome the odds and get to the bottom of the mystery before all hell breaks loose? Will her pet raven, Francis, ever find enlightenment? Will anyone ever teach Noni to say the word 'chocolate' properly?

Gift reads - best books to buy this Christmas

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