The project to celebrate Irish women writers to mark International Women's Day culminates in this Saturday's Irish Times with a double-page spread – a poster of a dozen representative Irish women writers with an article on each by a leading author, academic or critic explaining their choice.

Keith Jeffery, professor of British history at Queen's University Belfast and author of Ireland and the Great War, examines two books which explore the sacrifices made by Irish men and women in the first World War – Ireland's Great War by Kevin Myers and The Glorious Madness: Tales of the Irish in the Great War by Turtle Bunbury.

Roy Foster, Carroll professor of Irish history at Hertford College, Oxford, reviews The Lost Imperialist by Andrew Gailey, a biography of the first marquess of Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Temple-Blackwood, an amateur explorer and bestselling author, governor-general of Canada and viceroy of India.

Irish Times literary correspondent Eileen Battersby reviews These are the Names by Tommy Wieringa, translated by Sam Garrett.

Author Mary Russell reviews Leaving Before the Rains Come, Alexandra Fuller's follow-up to her marvellous memoir Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight.

Arts journalist Sarah Gilmartin reviews The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma.

Poet Bernard O'Donoghue reviews The Poet's Tale: Chaucer and the Year that Made the Canterbury Tales by Paul Strohm.

Sinéad Gleeson, presenter of The Book Show on RTÉ Radio 1, explores the rise of a women's writing movement.

Robert Dunbar devotes his children's fiction column to Sheena Wilkinson, and her new novel, Still Falling.

Author Rob Doyle reviews One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway, by Åsne Seierstad, translated by Sarah Death.

Andrew Hadfield, professor of English at Sussex University and the author of Shakespeare and Republicanism, reviews Forensic Shakespeare by Quentin Skinner.