Book Reviews

A nuanced and frankly terrifying guide to averting global annihilation

A nuanced and frankly terrifying guide to averting a third World War

This Cursed Beautiful Land review: Evan Gershkovich tells his story of imprisonment in Russia

The Wall Street Journal reporter recounts his arrest, trial and 16 months in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison

The Weight of Angels by John Boyne: What if Oscar Wilde had lived long beyond his 46 years?

A poignant, moving, sometimes funny novel about regret and atonement

Alice Cooper’s new book lacks bite, but the definitive story of The Shadows is masterful

Plus an enlightening overview of Ultravox and the fickleness of fame, and an eloquent broadside against the US country music industry

New crime fiction books, including Jasper Fforde’s funny triumph of human creativity

A 19th novel in the Jack Taylor series from the late, great Ken Bruen, plus compelling works from Carrie Lee South, Mick Herron and Jonathan Ames

Housing the Nation by Lorcan Sirr and Brittle by Ronan Lyons: indictments of an untenable system

Insightful, illuminating works by leading housing commentators both ultimately ask: remembering our past, while looking to the future, what kind of Ireland do we need to build?

Not the Perfect Victim by Nikita Hand: An immense and ongoing act of courage

The voice is clear, natural and readable, staying within the realm of personal testimony

Female Life on Planet Earth by Laleh Khadivi: Too many perspectives, not enough of an emotional thread

Despite qualms, the ending comes together beautifully

Glorious Monsters by Martina Devlin: An engrossing novel about Frankenstein author Mary Shelley

There’s a breathless energy to this novel that celebrates real-life figures in all their genius and flaws

A most enjoyable memoir from a great sportswriter

The Lost Sportswriter: A Life Up Close with Irish Sporting Greatness by Vincent Hogan

How much is anyone to blame for anything? Kathryn Paige Harden seeks an answer

Plus a wonderful and unflinching book from Trish Bourke and an enlightening read from Christopher Insole on questions about God

All About My Mother: An engaging account of family life from Diana Rigg’s daughter

Intimate family interactions explored in portrayal of an evolving mother/daughter relationship

Sylvester Stallone’s memoir is fascinating at times but doesn’t quite hit

The writing moves with the rock-‘em-sock-‘em rhythm of his best flicks

James Marriott’s The New Dark Ages: A lucid, well-written antidote for the distracted public

‘The habit of reading good books needs all the talented defenders it can find’

Stations by Louise Kennedy: A masterwork from the heir to Edna O’Brien’s agile indignation

The author etches the milieu of Irish emigrants in a mid-1980s London squat with grimy, sexy granularity

Letters to Our Sons by Stephen Graham and Orly Klein: On men living out a crisis

No overview or editorial explanation of the crux of masculinity is offered. This is just a book of testimony

A Bigger Life by Louise O’Neill: A willingness and openness to surprise at its best

Commitment to being out in the world with other people may reveal one of the book’s most vital messages

Mary and Padraic Colum - Lives and the Dream: Bringing a singular literary duo back to life

Margaret Kelleher seeks to introduce new readers to the work of this successful intellectual couple

Hope amid the dangers of tech, magic, and bad breakups: this month’s YA recommendations

New books for teen readers from Máire Zepf, Kelechi Okafor, Elizabeth Acevedo and Catherine Doyle

Exposed – The Scandals that Shook the Irish State: Drawing a line from the past to today’s hot issues

Stories of envelopes exchanged in pubs and Mafiosi-like politicians are familiar, but they still shock

Ukrainian Lessons - Art in a Time of War: A plea about a conflict in the here and now

Guardian’s chief culture writer offers Ukrainian art as something happening now, not work to be interpreted later

On the Equality of All Things by Carlo Rovelli: A sceptical eye on humanity’s grand claims

The Italian theoretical physicist’s most ambitious work so far is marvellous, insouciant and liberating

Ireland - Why it Matters to be an Island by Michael Cronin: Stirring, provocative, unashamedly cerebral

Plea for ‘ecological sovereignty’ should persuade many of us islanders to reconnect with our true inheritance

Redwood by Ben Macintyre: World-altering conversations in a bathroom

Account of impotent KGB double-agent lives up to its claim to be the untold story of the cold war’s most extraordinary spy

The Strangers by Naomi Alderman: A wonderful blurring of lines between sci-fi and memoir

A work of emotional magnitude that interrogates pain at the source without searching for a neat encapsulation

End Times Fascism: How the ultra-rich not only benefit from crises but endeavour to trigger them

Practised detachment allows privilege to maintain itself, unchecked, write Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

Fearless! Vincent Browne’s Magill and Ireland in the 1980s: Skilful acknowledgment of a valuable legacy

Kevin Rafter narrates tale of an Ireland seeking public accountability, a new assertiveness in the media, and impetus towards liberalism and tolerance

New poetry: ‘The most horrifying, exquisite and staggering poems I have ever read’

Mícheál McCann reviews Milk & Moon-water by Milena Williamson; Real Estate by Mark Ward; Landscape with Question by Leeanne Quinn; and 48kg by Batool Abu Akleen

Happy, Thank You. More, Please: A candid story of learning to value your own happiness

Kyla Cobbler shares her frequently ‘laugh-out-loud funny’ experience of childhood, toxic relationships, mental health struggles and inspiring journey to self-love

We Shall Outlast Them - Putin’s Global Campaign to Defeat the West: convincing insights on Russian statecraft

Kremlin has consistently promoted itself as anti-colonial leader against western ‘neo-colonialism’ on behalf of Global South

Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson: Burma light railway

Historical novel’s Carry On up the South Bank element dilutes potential for a more satisfying read

Early Deane: Essential essays from a towering Irish revolutionary intellectual

Seamus Deane warns of the dangers of sentimentalising a precolonial past (the Gaelic Eden) or idealising a postcolonial future (when the island is one, all will be well)

Sensation by Colin Graham: A compact, echoing and suggestive memoir

An odyssey rooted in the experience of growing up in 1980s Belfast

Love and Hunger: Thoughts on the Gift of Food by Charlotte Wood – Cosy middle-class comforts

Unlike her fiction, the Australian author’s culinary writing is sunny side up

Books in brief: Lesbian love, the morality of assisted dying, and evolving British rituals

New works by Hilary McCollum; Kathleen Stock; and Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender and Rebecca Warren

Dublin’s history: from the great Liberties whiskey fire to the remarkable story of Neary’s pub

Also reviewed: histories of the Navan Road, Milltown, Dalkey, Mount Jerome Cemetery and industry

The Pathless Walk: Why has Ireland the worst countryside access in Europe?

To find answers the author, originally from Cornwall, sets out on a 678km diagonal walk across Ireland

Ourselves Alone: Sinn Féin Behind Closed Doors by Siobhán Fenton

An unavoidable impression in this book is that Sinn Féin had a big opportunity, but blew it

The Newer World by Sebastian Barry: Giving voice to slavery and its aftermath

The protagonist Tennyson is a beautiful literary creation, but has he been refused his own agency?

Compelling and unsettling: The Last Years of Edna O’Brien by her son Carlo Gébler

The memoir powerfully evokes O’Brien’s rage against ‘hideous’ dying

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