Journeys of Faith: Stories of Pilgrimage from Medieval Ireland
By Louise Nugent
Columba, €26.99
Religious pilgrimages in Ireland have a long history and endure to the present day. This well-organised, well-narrated and beautifully illustrated book covers the 7th century to the Reformation. During that period, pilgrimage was one of the most popular expressions of personal faith and was practised by men, women and children of all social classes. Local sites (holy wells, graves, statues, churches) were by far the most popular destinations, requiring little investment of time and money, but some – mostly men – ventured further afield to Jerusalem, Rome, Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela. Foreign pilgrims also came to Ireland, especially to St Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg, Co Donegal. Motives and preparations for going, difficulties encountered en route, rituals performed at the site and returning home and its aftermath are explored in various chapters. – Brian Maye
Culture in the Third Reich
By Moritz Föllmer
Oxford UP, £20
Föllmer presents an impressively researched and steady-handed account of cultural life within – and what appeared to those outside – the Nazi regime. He covers all areas: music, literature, theatre etc, proving useful to this reader whose knowledge of cultural figures in Nazi Germany was limited to architect Albert Speer and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Föllmer deepens our understanding of how National Socialism shook up the German psyche in a radical way – but in such culturally conservative terms – through individual stories, while broadening his sober analysis to society as a whole between 1933-45. He also puts forth several reasons why Nazism produced very little culturally in real terms (some partially completed buildings) in a dozen years of power until its eventual descent into genocidal insanity. A considered reading. – NJ McGarrigle
Wrong: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper
By Diarmuid Hester
University of Iowa Press
The life's work of Dennis Cooper may be unfamiliar to many readers. Anarchic, brutal, transgressive, Cooper's novels and poetry are often shocking in their depictions of sex, death, and the body. That said, what Diarmuid Hester achieves in this skilful, lively biography is to show Cooper as a deeply-various artist, one whose works (though often outrageous or "obscene") are cut through with the spectre of elegy, and with a conception of anarchy anchored in a belief in fundamental goodness, "a commitment to a way of working, living, loving". Wrong is an important book, both humorous and rigorous, and handles the interplay of Cooper's work and life with sensitivity and genuine insight, from the early poetry through the George Miles Cycle of novels, and on to Cooper's blogging and film-making. Drawing on archival investigation and personal interviews, Hester's biography is intimately researched and, importantly, will leave readers eager to read (or re-read) Cooper's work. – Seán Hewitt
