For the time of Easter reflection that is in it, Sadbh draws your attention to an unusual book published by the Folio Society this week, The Dead Sea Scrolls. Translated and edited by Geza Vermes, this is a selection of the texts of the original leather scrolls, which were found by a Bedouin shepherd in the Qumran caves in 1947. Amazingly, the scrolls, estimated to have been hidden in about 68 AD, had survived more or less intact.
Vermes is professor emeritus of Jewish Studies at Oxford, and this is a new edition of his translations, complete with photographs from the excavations. The Dead Sea Scrolls (£24.95 in UK) is available only directly from the Folio Society (00-44-2074004200). Vermes also has a new book out his month, The Changing Faces of Jesus, published by Penguin Press, and reviewed opposite by Patrick Comerford.
Brendan O'Donoghue, the director of the National Library, tells Sadbh of some important new acquisitions. Stephen Griffin, an American of Irish descent who lives near Boston, has donated around 2,300 books of Irish-American interest to the library. "Stephen has been a book collector and dealer for many years," explains O'Donoghue, "and he just said he wanted his books to have a good home. The books are very rare on this side of the Atlantic, since many of them were locally published in small editions - we didn't even know that many of them existed." The books date from the 1700s to contemporary times, with the bulk of the collection coming from the 19th century. About 1,600 of them have arrived so far, and we've catalogued most of them now." Griffin has generously promised even more books at a later date. Probably the most valuable from a collector's viewpoint is a biography of Henry Grattan, which has the bookplate of the eighth American president, Martin Van Buren, stuck in it, with the date February 1840.
When does a well-meaning idea run the danger of turning into an embarrassment? Sadbh has been sent a copy of Podium V, Poetry from Samhlaiocht Chiarrai, Kerry Arts' fifth poetry anthology. It is divided into two sections: one, the Poet's Podium, consists of poems selected from people who have sent in competition entries for a public reading with John Montague and publication in Podium V. The other section is Jester to the Kingdom; what Noel King of Samhlaiocht Chiarrai calls "humorous poetry performances".
Performed publicly, and judged by three people and a "clapometer", this could be described as "karaoke poetry". No doubt these ballad-type poems were a hoot the night the clapometer was in business and the performances were live, but frankly, their publication in Podium V does them or it no favours. Some are crude doggerel and others just plain doggerel. Sadbh would argue that this is not poetry, no matter what Samhlaiocht Chiarrai would like you to think, but read it and make up your own mind.
Wednesday will see the new Eason/Hanna's hosting its very first book launch in its new premises at the end of Dublin's Dawson Street. The book in question is a children's title, Worms Can't Fly, by Larry and Aislinn O'Loughlin. The bookshop hasn't been officially opened yet, but Sadbh is told there will be a hooley in a couple of months when all the building work has been completed. Already, book lovers in the capital have discovered the new store with its excellent cafe, separate children's book space and big windows looking out on the street below. Dawson Street is now being dubbed the Charing Cross Road of Dublin, with all its bookshops making things very easy for habitual browsers who will have many of their needs met all in the space of one street.
Small-sized books seem to be all the rage these days; slender little volumes not much bigger than a mobile phone, that slide into a pocket and have the advantage of not ringing on the bus and making everyone glare snootily at you. Two such published this week are A Pocket History of Gaelic Culture, by Alan Titley, and A Pocket History of Irish Rebels, by Morgan Llywelyn; both from O'Brien Press at £5 a go. Titley has a marvellous summary of what he considers Gaelic culture consists of: "The shoddiest craft shop, hurling matches, ogham pennants, Aran sweaters, Claddagh rings, the Irish pub, leprechaun cabarets, Celtic cross headstones, loquacious silence, the formalisation of informality, medieval banquets, and whatever long list makes Ireland distinctive, all owe something to the Gaelic tradition. It is not just the ghost at the feast but the very shape of the room we live in."