Irish nonfiction
Memoirs by a famous politician and a much-loved actor are among next year’s most anticipated titles, while the legacy of violence and abuse, both political and domestic, is the subject of a slew of powerful personal stories.
Leo Varadkar (Sandycove, September) promises a rare behind-the-scenes look at the former taoiseach’s life, both personal and political, and an insight into our recent political history.
Academy Award-winning actor Brenda Fricker’s as yet untitled intimate memoir (Apollo, September) doesn’t just recount her glittering career, spanning six decades and more than 30 film and TV credits, including My Left Foot, Home Alone 2, Casualty and Coronation Street; she also reveals the traumas that took place behind the scenes, including being abused as a child by an acting coach and a sexual assault by an actor as a young woman.
[ Fifteen things to expect in Leo Varadkar’s autobiographyOpens in new window ]
A Time for Truth (Hachette Books Ireland, February) by Sarah Corbett Lynch is a raw and powerful account of her family’s gruelling nine-year battle for justice for her father Jason Corbett and Sarah’s own journey of grief and recovery from trauma.
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Author’s musings on death place a comforting hand around the flickering candle of life
Noah Donohoe: The Search for Truth (Mirror Books, May) by leading investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre examines the unexplained death of a 14-year-old Catholic schoolboy who went missing in Belfast, only for his body to be found a week later in a storm drain in a loyalist part of the city.
Deadly Silence (Hachette Books Ireland, May) by Jacqueline Connolly is the heartbreaking account of a sister’s search for the truth behind one man’s evil deeds. Her sister Clodagh was murdered, along with her sons Liam, Niall and Ryan, by husband and father Alan Hawe.
Rot: A History of the Irish Famine (Robinson, March) by Padraic X Scanlan shows how the staggering inequality, pervasive debt, outrageous rent-gouging, precarious employment, and vulnerability to changes in commodity prices that torment so many in the 21st century were rehearsed in the Irish countryside as a British imperial experiment before the potatoes failed.
The history of the Northern conflict is explored in several new titles, including The Sorrow and the Loss: The Tragic Shadow Cast by the Troubles on the Lives of Women (Merrion, February) by Martin Dillon.
In The Bass Player (New Island, July), Stephen Travers recounts how three members of his showband, the Miami, were murdered by British security forces in collusion with the UVF. He barely survived but in time became a campaigner, international speaker, facilitator of truth and reconciliation and a plaintiff in a historic legal case against the British ministry of defence.
100 years on from the failure of the Boundary Commission, historian Cormac Moore explores in The Root of All Evil: The Irish Boundary Commission (Irish Academic Press, May) the factors that led to the abandonment of Northern nationalists close to the border.
[ Geography and destiny – Ronan McGreevy on the Boundary CommissionOpens in new window ]
The Northern Bank Job (Head of Zeus, May) by Glenn Patterson is the true story of one of the biggest bank heists in Irish and British history – and the questions that remain.
Ulster Unionists: A People Apart (Merrion, autumn) by Alex Kane is a new reassessment of the state of unionism from the author’s birth in 1957 through to today.
Troubled Waters (Merrion, autumn) by Tommy Greene is an investigative exposé of the near ecological destruction of Lough Neagh by corporate greed and a failing public system.
The Big Fight: When Ali Conquered Ireland (Merrion, March) is Dave Hannigan’s retelling of Ali’s fight with Al ‘Blue’ Lewis at Croke Park on a balmy July evening in 1972.
In The Last Ditch: How One GAA Summer Gave Me Back My Life (Hachette Books Ireland, May), Eamonn Sweeney sets out to write a sports memoir about the 2024 hurling and football championships and ends up rewriting his life story, addressing a crippling phobia, mental health, family, ageing and a changing Ireland.
England and Eternity: A Book of Cricket (Head of Zeus, October) by Declan Kiberd is a teasing but affectionate celebration of cricket through the ages, by one of Ireland’s leading critics.
Aerdogs (Eastwood, February) by Tom Lyons is the story of a small team of Irish trailblazers who made low-cost air travel available to millions of people across Europe, Asia, North America and Latin America.
Burn Them Out! A History of Fascism and the Far Right in Ireland (Head of Zeus, April) by Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc reveals the forgotten history of the Irish far right from the 1920s up to the present.
Still (September, New Island) by Julia Kelly is about the death and life of her mother, who died while swimming in the Galápagos Islands in 2012. It’s a forensic examination of her postmortem and an attempt to bring her back to life, body part by body part, so that she can finally let her go.
The Episode (Sandycove, May) by Mary Ann Kenny is a memoir of a woman’s descent into madness and her journey back again.
In The Age of Diagnosis (Sceptre, March), Wellcome Prize-winning neurologist Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan investigates the shifting boundaries in medicine and reframes how we think about illness and health.
The Black Pool: A Memoir of Forgetting (Hodder & Stoughton, April) is author Tim MacGabhann’s raw and powerful memoir of addiction and recovery, across three continents and multiple drugs, from early childhood through adulthood.
The follow-on to her debut novel Flight, Oona Frawley’s Deathbeds and Birthdays (Lilliput, April) is a memoir about the deaths and births that have shaped her life.
Wired Our Own Way: Irish Autistic Voices (March, New Island) edited by Niamh Garvey is the first anthology of essays by autistic Irish adults including Naoise Dolan, Nuala O’Connor, James McClean and Adam Harris.
Irish Nurses in the NHS: An Oral History (Four Courts Press, February) edited by Louise Ryan, Gráinne McPolin and Neha Doshi, tells the stories of Irish nurses in their own words, using rich oral history and photographs, from the rigours of training to the fun of dance halls.
Gráinne Hurley’s ‘Gratefully and Affectionately’: Mary Lavin and The New Yorker (New Island, April) recounts the Irish author’s close working relationship with her chief editor, Rachel MacKenzie. During those years, they wrote nearly 400 letters to each other, ranging from story edits to their private lives.
Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur (White Rabbit, May) by Dean Van Nguyen is the first Tupac biography to explore the origins of his personal politics, socialism and iconoclastic significance.
To Aran, I (Lilliput, February) by Andrew McNeillie tells how a young Welshman fulfilled his dream of living on Inis Mór, an adventure recorded in his acclaimed first memoir An Aran Keening.
Music and Mayhem (Lilliput, March) charts the life of one of Ireland’s most important musicians, Keith Donald.
Frank O’Connor’s seminal work on the art of the short story, The Lonely Voice (Lilliput, February) is back in print with a new introduction by Kevin Barry.
The Language of Light (Lilliput, autumn) is an authorised selection from artist Sean Scully’s lectures, notebooks and interviews, over 40 years.
Count Me Out: Selected Writings of Filmmaker Bob Quinn (Boluise Press, February), is a collection of essays and articles by the renowned Irish artist.
Mary MacSwiney (UCD Press, February), a biography by Leeann Lane, traces her political evolution from suffrage and cultural revival activism to advanced nationalism.
After the Train (UCD Press, May), edited by Evelyn Conlon and Rebecca Pelan, relates the story of Irishwomen United and the networks around it, on the 50th anniversary of its formation, featuring personal memoir, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Well Woman Centre, Arlen House and Attic Press.
WTF Happened: #WakingTheFeminists and the movement that changed Irish theatre (UCD Press, May), edited by Sarah Durcan and Lian Bell, tells the story of movement that resulted from the Abbey Theatre’s failure to celebrate women’s contribution to Irish theatre in the centenary celebrations.
In Do Not Try to Become a Buddha (Wisdom, February), a collection of short essays, Irish Soto Zen priest Myozan Ian Kilroy describes how he came to practice Zen, introduces some basics of Zen philosophy, and recalls the challenges of establishing a Zen Buddhist community in Catholic-dominated Ireland.
International nonfiction
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in particular the deadly onslaught on the people of Gaza, and Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine have prompted a spate of significant books.
The World After Gaza (Fern Press, February) by Pankaj Mishra is inspired by his viral LRB article, The Shoah after Gaza. It is an essential reckoning with the war, its historical conditions and moral and geopolitical ramifications.
[ Attack, withdraw, return: Israel’s bloody cycle of war in north GazaOpens in new window ]
One day, everyone will have been against this (Canongate, February) by Omar El Akkad traces his journey as an immigrant journalist and author in the US who believed the West offered freedom and justice for all. Watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, he concludes that much of what the West promises is a lie.
Written as a series of diary extracts, The Eyes of Gaza (Macmillan, April) by young Palestinian journalist Plestia Alaqad, depicts daily life in Gaza amid Israel’s brutal invasion and bombardment.
From a pre-1948 Palestinian neighbourhood in Jaffa, razed for a park in what is now Tel Aviv, to the ruins of a Bronze-Age city that has become the nickname for an infamous Israeli checkpoint, Forgotten (Profile, March) by Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson retraces Palestine’s history through decades of displacement and loss.
With a foreword by Margaret Atwood, Looking at Women Looking at War (William Collins, February) by Victoria Amelina, a writer turned war crimes researcher, is a posthumous chronicle of how Ukrainian women like the author joined the resistance. She was killed when a Russian missile hit the restaurant where she was hosting visiting international authors.
38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi Patagonia (W & N, April) by Philippe Sands uncovers a chilling historical crime that has real world impact today. Named after a torture facility in the heart of Santiago, the book weaves together the arrest of Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998 and his links to Walther Rauff, SS officer, in Chilean Patagonia.
Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress and Dr Crippen (Transworld, March) by Hallie Rubenhold, author of the acclaimed The Five, The Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, re-examines the case of an infamous wife-murderer in Edwardian England, brought to justice by an extraordinary group of strong women.
Is a River Alive (Penguin, May) by bestselling nature writer Robert Macfarlane explores the idea that the natural world is far more alive than is often allowed.
Why, asks Lamorna Ash in Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever (Bloomsbury, May), are young people in Britain today turning to faith in our age of uncertainty?
Source Code (Penguin, February) is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ origin story.
Wild Fictions (John Murray, April) brings together Amitav Ghosh’s extraordinary writing on the subjects that have obsessed him for 25 years: literature and language; climate change and the environment; human lives, travel, and discoveries.
Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War (Bloomsbury, February) is Ash Sarkar’s urgent dissection of the deafening culture of distraction stoked by the ruling minority in the UK, and around the world.
The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country (Mariner, February) by Rosie Schaap – equal parts memoir and social history – follows the author, after a series of tragic losses, from New York to Northern Ireland, where she finds a path toward healing.
In Equality: What It Means and Why It Matters (Polity, January), Thomas Piketty and Michael Sandel reflect on the value of equality and debate what citizens and governments should do to narrow the gaps that separate us.
The trial of Dominique Pelicot has captured the world’s attention. Behind the haunting details of Pelicot’s unthinkable crimes are a mother, Gisèle, and daughter, Caroline Darian, who were forced to rebuild their lives. I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again: Turning our Family Trauma of Chemical Submission into a Collective Fight (Leap, January) by Caroline Darian is their story.
David Keenan’s Volcanic Tongue (White Rabbit, March), subtitled A Time-Travelling Evangelist’s Guide to Late-Twentieth-Century Underground Music, collects the author’s music writings.
Slow Train Coming: Bob Dylan’s Girl from the North Country and Broadway’s Rebirth (Methuen, January) by Todd Almond traces the journey of Conor McPherson’s and Dylan’s musical from potential disaster to success.
Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the Surrender of Japan (Allen Lane, March) by Richard Overy is a remarkable account of the terrible climax of the second World War in Asia, published to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.
Femonomics (Hodder & Stoughton, September) by Corinne Low introduces us to a radical new framework: treating women as economic agents who can maximise their personal “profit” in the same way that a business makes money.
Picnic on Craggy Island: The Surreal Joys of Producing Father Ted (Penguin, February) by Lissa Evans is a lighthearted, nostalgic memoir by the popular novelist of her years working on the hit sitcom.
Patrick Radden Keefe’s The Oligarch’s Son (Picador, autumn) explores the fatal plunge into the London underworld by Zac Brettler, who was posing as a Russian oligarch’s son. It builds on the Say Nothing author’s recent reporting for the New Yorker.
Road to Findout: The Cat Stevens Story (Little, Brown, December) by Yusuf Islam will be an above-average musical memoir if it appears. It’s already ben postponed once and details are still sketchy.
Essays on Women (Penguin, July) is an anthology of Caitlin Moran’s columns and essays on modern womanhood.
America, América: A New History of the New World by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Greg Grandin is the first definitive history of the western hemisphere, a sweeping, five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both.
Broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough shares the story of our last great, critical wilderness in Ocean: How to Save Earth’s Last Wilderness (John Murray, May).
Mother Mary Comes to Me (Hamish Hamilton, September) is a memoir by Arundhati Roy, whose The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize in 1997, about her childhood and relationship with her mother.
The Leopard in my House: One Man’s Adventures in Cancerland (Ebury, February) by comedian and broadcaster Mark Steel is a frank, funny diary of one man’s year getting ill, getting on with it, and getting better.
The Message (Hamish Hamilton, February) by Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the urgent need to untangle ourselves from destructive nationalist myths.
Homework (Canongate, May) is the first memoir from humorist Geoff Dyer, recollecting on his childhood and what it means to come of age in England in the 1960s and 1970s.
Hope (Viking, January) by Pope Francis is the first papal autobiography, said to offer a wealth of powerful and human revelations, and unpublished stories.
Home (Fig Tree, October) by author and columnist India Knight takes us through her home – and through the mess, and the joy, of life.
