New Island Books: 96 books

CHRISTMAS, 1940 France is under German control, Britain is in danger and the United States has yet to join the war. Ireland has succeeded in staying neutral – so far. But rumours about a British troop build-up in the North stoke fears that Ireland is facing an invasion. And Germany’s bombing of...

‘Ledwidge very deliberately chose not to bury his head in local sand and, as a consequence, faced the choices and moral challenges of his times with solitude, honesty and rare courage. This integrity, and its ultimately gratifying effects upon his poetry, should command the renewed interest and...

Bestselling author Julie Parsons (Mary, Mary, I Saw You, The Hourglass) is back with a powerful, compelling, and darkly chilling novel of violence, shame and deceit. On Sundays peace was restored. He would lie down, dream and remember. He would enjoy. And later on the bell would ring. He would get...

‘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...

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...

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.

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...