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Sense of Place Stars: Ireland

Fiction and Nonfiction Titles set in Ireland

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

Irish Crime Fiction

Fiction

  • Tara Road
    Author: Binchy, Maeve
    Publisher: Delacorte List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385333951 Date: 1999
    starPW
    Ria, who lives on Tara Road in Dublin, thinks her marriage is fine right up until her husband leaves with his young, pregnant girlfriend. By a chance phone call, Ria meets Marilyn, a woman from New England unable to come to terms with her only son's death and now estranged from her husband. The two women exchange houses for the summer with extraordinary consequences, each learning the other has a deep secret that can never be revealed.
  • Finbar's Hotel
    Author: Bolger, Dermot (ed)
    Publisher: Harvest List Price: $ 13 (trade paper) ISBN: 0156006332 Date: 1999
    starBL
    In an unprecedented collaboration, seven of Ireland's finest writers join in a riotous novel about the last night in the life of a dingy Dublin hotel.
  • Reading in the Dark
    Deane, Seamus
    Publisher: Knopf List Price: $23 ISBN: 0394574400 Date: 1997
    starPublishers WeeklystarLibrary JournalstarKirkus
    PW Best Books of '97
    NYTBR Notable
    L.A. Times Book Award Finalist
    LJ Best Books
    ALA RUSA Notable
    Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, this mesmerizing story of childhood set amidst the violence of Northern Ireland in the 1940's and 1950's is breathtakingly sad, but vibrant and unforgettable. Haunted by a truth he both wants and does not want to uncover, the boy narrator of this novel listens and watches as the world of legend surrounding him reveals its transfixing reality, unfolding secrets like a collection of folktales.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
  • Juno and Juliet
    Author: Gough, Julian
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.95 ISBN: 0385501722 Date: 2001
    starPWstarLibrary JournalstarBooklist
    Written by the fresh, new Irish voice of Julian Gough, Juno & Juliet is an intelligent and lighthearted tale of two beautiful sisters who experience university life in Galway and the radiance of newfound love.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Debuts | Twins
    Updated 5/17/01
  • Confessions of a Pagan Nun
    Author: Horsley, Kate
    Publisher: Shambhala $ 19.95 ISBN: 1570627193 Date: 2001
    starLibrary Journal
    In this moving and subtle tale, an Irish woman struggles between the old Druid ways and the rising tide of Christianity.
    Updated 8/24/01
  • The Changeling of Finnistuath
    Author: Horsley, Kate
    Publisher: Shambhala $ 22.95 ISBN: 1590300483 Date: 2004
    starLJ
    A young girl who is raised as a boy searches for identity and redemption in this compelling and provocative coming-of-age story set in 14th century Ireland--from the author of Confessions of a Pagan Nun.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Gender Identity Stars
    Updated 3.15.04
  • The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland
    Author: Keane, John B.
    Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 12 (paper) ISBN: 0786712988 Date: 2004
    starKirkus
    A fitting tribute to John B. Keane, for decades Ireland's favorite storyteller, this winning short story collection typifies the late author's folkloric imagination and storytelling arts.
    Updated 12.29.03
  • Patrick: Son of Ireland
    Author: Lawhead, Stephen R.
    Publisher: Morrow $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060012811 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    A magnificent historical novel about the early life of the man who would one day be known as St. Patrick. This is the story of Patrick's "missing years"--years of calamity, defeat, and crushing disappointment that form him into a bard and advisor to the High King of Ireland, and lead to the mission for which his name will be remembered throughout history.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | Biographical Fiction
    Updated 3.13.03
  • Mondo Desperado: A Serial Novel
    Author: McCabe, Patrick
    Publisher: HarperColllins $ 24 ISBN: 0060194618 Date: 2000
    starLibrary Journal
    With his trademark blistering wit and macabre genius, McCabe presents a series of connected narratives that interweave the surreal lives of dementedly funny inhabitants of the insular Irish town of Barntrosna.
  • Call Me the Breeze
    Author: McCabe, Patrick
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060523883 Date: 2003
    starPWstarBooklist
    From the two-time Booker Prize finalist, Patrick McCabe, comes a dark and hilarious novel about a man's fall from grace and journey to redemption, set against the political struggles of Northern Ireland during 1970s through the present day.
    Updated 12.15..03
  • Every Thing in This Country: A Novella & Two Stories
    Author: McCann, Colum
    Publisher: Metropolitan $ 21 ISBN: 0805063986 Date: 2000
    starKirkus
    In his fourth book, McCann, a "bold and mesmerizing" writer, turns to the Troubles and reveals, as only fiction writers can, the reverberations of political tragedy in the most intimate lives of men and women, parents and children.
  • By the Lake
    Author: McGahern, John
    Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0679419144 Date: 2002
    starKirkus
    Widely considered to be one of the finest Irish writers of fiction at work today, McGahern now renders a novel that brings to vivid life the world and the people of a contemporary Irish village with insight, humor, and deep sympathy.
    Updated 1/24/02
  • Wild Decembers
    Author: O'Brien, Edna
    Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 0618045678 Date: 2000
    starPWstarKirkus
    O'Brien's latest novel charts the quick and critical demise of relations between "the warring sons of warring sons" fighting over inherited land in the countryside of western Ireland.
  • Down By the River
    O'Brien, Edna
    Publisher: Farrar, Straus, Giroux List Price: $23 ISBN: 0374143277 Date: 1997
    starPublishers WeeklystarBookliststarLibrary Journal
    NYTBR Notable
    Booklist Editors Choice
    Set in her native Ireland, Edna O'Brien's newest novel explores the dark and tortured aspects of family ties. In Down by the River, O'Brien is at the peak of her narrative powers. Her gift for describing the emotional conflict is at its most searing and poetic, as her prose churns the heart with its potent rhythms.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
  • In the Forest
    Author: O'Brien, Edna
    Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 0618197303 Date: 2002
    starBookliststarKirkus
    Taken from a true story, this psychological thriller returns to the countryside of western Ireland, the vivid backdrop of the author's Wild December. Michen O'Kane's problems go beyond early loss and abuse--the killing instinct is already kindled in him as he earns the title of Kinderschreck: someone of whom children are afraid.
    Updated 2/1/02
  • Salesman
    Author: O'Connor, Joseph
    Publisher: Picador List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0312199988 Date: 1999
    starPW
    During the hottest summer in Dublin's history, Billy Sweeney, a middle-aged salesman, decides to take the law into his own hands after his daughter is attacked. But his plans go spectacularly wrong, the results are terrifying, often hilarious, and in the end, unforgettable.
  • The Deposition of Father McGreevy
    Author: O'Doherty, Brian
    Publisher: Turtle Point List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 1885983395 Date: 1999
    starLJstarKirkus
    Rich in the details of Irish life and love, with a narrative that evokes both a time and a place with a keen, unsentimental eye, this novel tells the story of a priest who must struggle to preserve what remains of a parish in an isolated village where the women mysteriously die.
  • At Swim, Two Boys
    Author: O'Neill, James
    Publisher: Scribner $ 27 ISBN: 0743222946 Date: 2002
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    In the tradition of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children comes an astonishingly ambitious and resonant novel that transports readers to Dublin in the year preceding the Easter uprising--a pivotal time in Irish history and in the lives of two very young men from different backgrounds.
    Booklist Top 10 Gay & Lesbian Books (June 2002)
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
    Updated 2/6/02
  • Kilbrack
    Author: O'Neill, Jamie
    Publisher: Scribner $ 14 (paper) ISBN: 074325595x Date: 2004
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    A cast of rampant miscreants, brilliantly witty dialogue, and dark imaginings make for compulsive comic reading in Kilbrack, written more than a decade before At Swim, Two Boys established O'Neill as "one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Irish fiction" (The Observer).
    Updated 1.15.04
  • The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga
    Author: Rutherfurd, Edward
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 27.95 ISBN: 0385502869 Date: 2004
    starLJ
    Rutherfurd has introduced millions of readers to the human dramas that are the lifeblood of history. His latest is a sweeping panorama steeped in the tragedy and glory that is Ireland, epitomizing the power and richness of Rutherfurd's storytelling magic.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
    Updated 3.15.04
  • Dislocation: Stories from a New Ireland
    Author: Walsh, Caroline (ed)
    Publisher: Carroll & Graf $14 (paper) ISBN: 0786712066 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    Eleven stories from 11 up-and-coming Irish writers are handpicked by the literary editor of The Irish Times.
    Updated 10.2.03

Nonfiction

  • Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman
    Author: O'Faolain, Nuala
    Publisher: Riverhead $ 24.95 ISBN: 1573222410 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    O'Faolain begins her story from the moment her life began to change in all manner of ways--subtle, radical, predictable, and unforeseen. It is a provocative meditation on the "crucible of middle age." It is also a story of good fortune chasing out bad--of an accidental harvest of happiness.
    Updated 3.31.02