Island Books: 261 books

When Father Aengus Cornelius Finucane entered a room, his entrance was noted. When he held court at one of his parties, the focus was on him. When he addressed a gathering, made a case to a Prime Minister or importuned a new Concern donor, his audience listened. In this powerful new biography, the...

‘The doyen of Irish drag queens … The original of the species … Mr Pussy is a riot’ In 1969, a young Englishman named Alan Amsby arrived in Ireland with a frock and a wig. He was booked for one week, but was an overnight sensation, and made Dublin his home. Catholic Ireland had never before...

From lovable oddballs and quirky miscreants to out-and-out chancers and the certifiably insane, the streets of Dublin have been filled with an eclectic cast of characters down through the years. Aided by comic illustrations from Ruan van Vliet, Bobby Aherne relates the stories of over 100 of the city’s...

An inspiring chronological timeline of personal stories of migration, New to the Parish takes us on a journey across the globe – from Cameroon to Myanmar, Poland to New York, Nigeria to Venezuela, Iraq to Syria – and back home again. These fourteen stories are given context by succinct...

There is one thing you must never lose sight of. No matter what life deals you, promise me that you will strive tooth and nail for the right to be happy. Having surrendered her happiness to raise her children, Eva Fitzgerald defies convention in 1950s Ireland by leaving a failed marriage...

Proverbs are like people – they can be humorous, sad, old, young, even have their own offspring. But they can also tell us a great deal about the time, the place and the culture that created them. Proverbs are, however, much more than that. They are windows into our past, and a friendly nod from...

'It's jail,' I said. 'Don't expect better of anybody in jail. Expect worse.' Welcome to Her Majesty's Prison Loanend, where inmate Harold 'Chalky' Chalkman, serving twelve for a violent assault, and lucky not to have been done for attempted murde,r works as the orderly to E and F wings. Burning with...

DUBLIN, 1981 One cop. One curate. One hardman. One boy. When a brutal attack on a prison officer puts these four on a collision course, the outcome will be as startling as it is unsentimental. Gritty, authentic and emotionally charged, Snapshots is at once a taut crime thriller and a reflection of...

People think that if they go far away they ll leave the parts of themselves behind. But it doesn t work like that.' Stevie moves to Galway to pursue her PhD and takes refuge in the city, and in her relationship with Joe Kavanagh, a charismatic but dispirited artist. Both are looking for something...

Aidan Mooney has the mother of all problems. His mum is part dragon. He's spent his whole life struggling to keep her hidden from the world. But now, with the help of his super-smart new friend Charlotte, Aidan discovers a much darker secret hiding in the woods …

The Umbrella Tree tells the story of Helena Wolff, who grew up on a coffee farm in Kenya, together with her brother Horace. As an adult, she settled in an affluent Ireland, where her quiet and seemingly normal life in Wicklow is undermined by the tragedy and violence of her past. In this deep, yet often humorous novel, twists and turns culminate in a shocking and unexpected ending.

With Hawks, Peter Hollywood has crafted a gripping collection of stories which reflects the changing face of Northern Ireland. While Northern Ireland is in the process of a gradual transformation into another place, despite the glitz on the surface, it is yet to arrive. Haunted by the collective memory...

Who am I? Am I this human body that is born and dies? Or am I something else? Although we cannot truly know the answer to such questions, we can be guided on a path that will eventually lead us home, to whomever and whatever we really are. Koans are a means to discover this path. Koans have...

London, Summer, 1964. The Beatles have just released A Hard Days Night and the swinging sixties are fast approaching. Ralph, twelve years old, waves his mother goodbye as she disappears to the U.S. to work for a year, leaving him in the care of Doreen, an Irish housekeeper, and her husband Tom, a...