The ultimate book gift guide for the readers in your life

This year’s breakthrough author is Bonnie Garmus, a woman in her mid-60s whose manuscript was rejected 98 times. The American writer had vowed to quit before she reached her 100th submission, yet became the “talk of the Frankfurt Book Fair” instead. The novel, Lessons In Chemistry (Doubleday) is like what might happen if you left Hidden Figures and Julia Child to mix in the same beaker. Apple TV+ has snapped up the rights, with Brie Larson mooted to star as the unforgettably charming scientist Elizabeth Zott.

Another writer with a great line in charming heroines is Scottish-born, Northampton-based commercial doyenne Mhairi McFarlane, and her seventh novel follows this fine tradition. Mad About You (Harper Collins) tells the story of Harriet Hatley, a wedding photographer who has just witnessed a bride getting jilted at the altar. She soon finds herself living in a perfect new houseshare. If only she could figure out where she’s seen her new housemate Cal before…

Closer to home, Louise O’Neill has landed in a literary sweet spot, hooking both commercial and highbrow readers. Her latest novel, Idol (Bantam Press), is brimful of aspirational glamour but, as is O’Neill’s way, she uses it as a Trojan horse to get to the heart of bigger matters such as identity politics, trauma, consent and family. Delivering one of the most assured and well-realised novels of her career, the Cork author has blended a slick take on influencer culture with a taut plot that wouldn’t be out of place in a classic thriller.

When Marian Keyes revealed that she was going to revisit the life of one of her most beloved characters, the news created waves of anticipation beyond even her circle of fans. The release of Again, Rachel (Penguin Books) was the commercial fiction event of the year, and rightly so. An absolute must-read for fans of the 1996 classic Rachel’s Holiday, but a book that reads charmingly on its own.

If you keep an eye on “BookTok”, the name Colleen Hoover will be familiar by now. Her latest offering, It Starts With Us, is the hotly anticipated sequel to the hugely popular It Ends With Us. Exploring themes of domestic abuse, parenting and the challenges of starting over in life, she has managed to deliver even more literary stardust.

Thrill Seeker
by Myles McWeeney

Tom Bradby’s Yesterday’s Spy (Bantam) sees spy Harry Tower plunged into the seething cauldron of revolutionary Iran when his estranged journalist son Sean disappears. Harry must team up with Sean’s well-connected girlfriend Shahnaz to find him in the country’s clerical-dominated interior. Powerful and utterly fascinating.

In The Tally Stick (World Editions) by Carl Nixon, oil executive John Chamberlain, his wife Julia and their children disappear without trace in New Zealand. Twenty-two years later in 1980, remains are found, suggesting one of his children lived for four years after they vanished. Julia’s sister Elizabeth flies in to try to establish the truth. A mesmerising, immersive mystery.

The Match (Penguin) by Harlan Coben introduces us to Wilde, a private investigator with as colourful a background as Tarzan. Wilde sets off to find his birth parents and encounters the murky world of online trolls and a string of serial killings. Vintage Coben.

John Grisham’s The Boys from Biloxi (Hodder & Stoughton), set in that Mississippi resort on the Gulf of Mexico, is a sweeping family saga describing the split between two teenage friends, as Hugh Malco follows his gangster father into the criminal world and Keith Rudy chooses his father’s legal career and attempts to eradicate the city’s corruption. It culminates, of course, in a white-knuckle courtroom drama.

In The Invisible (MacLehose Press) by Peter Papathanasiou, burnt-out Australian detective sergeant George Manolis travels to a remote village in Greece on holiday and reluctantly becomes involved in the search for a missing man. A wonderful evocation of life in the region with spectacular scenery and fearsome wildlife and equally dangerous criminals. Highly recommended.

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Mad Scientist
by Darragh McManus

Veteran biologist Éanna Ní Lamhna has seen it all over the decades, and in the charming Wild and Wonderful (The O’Brien Press) she explores the weird and wonderful sides of Planet Earth. From “murderous” crabs to owls that glow in the dark, to the “gangster tactics” of an animal with the coolest name ever — the devil’s coach-horse beetle — it’s a treat for the child or inner child.

In Search of Madness (Gill Books) is an intriguing history and analysis of mental illness from Brendan Kelly, professor of psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin. He roams from ancient times (trepanning in 1st century Rome) to modern neuroscience, touching such varied topics as Freud, schizophrenia, Victorian asylums and Nazi euthanasia along the way. He explains it all with lucidity and compassion.

Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe (HarperCollins) offers mind-bending physics of the most enjoyable kind, from rock-star scientist Brian Cox and colleague Jeff Forshaw. Most of us have some basic comprehension of what a black hole is — an infinitely dense region of space from which nothing can escape, not even light — but don’t grasp just how weird they are. Space is bent, stars are eaten alive and time ceases to have meaning: mind-boggling stuff that astro-nuts will lap up.

Eco Warrior
by Caroline O’Doherty

It was another strong year for new titles on climate, the environment and biodiversity, but Eoghan Daltun’s An Irish Atlantic Rainforest (Hachette) stands out.

Daltun could easily have devoted the entire book to chronicling his restoration of a famine-era cottage in the middle of Dublin’s bustling Kilmainham, or his time in Italy learning sculpture in the mountains made of prized Carrara marble, or his travels in South Africa.

Instead, these are mere sideshows to his greatest adventure — rewilding an abandoned farm in the Beara Peninsula. The stories are absorbing, the writing charismatic and the ideas thought-provoking.

The Climate Book (Allen Lane) created by Greta Thunberg is another great read. Essays from more than 100 scientists, activists and writers from all over the world present the facts, lived experience and politics of climate change. Thunberg ties the pieces together with overviews and proves herself as deft a writer as she is an orator. Deep and broad but accessible, the book is of its time but will still be relevant for many years to come.

George Monbiot can make readers of his Guardian columns feel like retreating to the naughty corner before they even turn the page as his polemic takes no prisoners. Regenesis (Allen Lane) has a different tone, however. In it, he explores the world’s food systems through places and people, showing how our most basic need has been horribly corrupted and how we and the Earth pay the price.

It has a softer style than his columns, but is as gritty and unsparing as ever in its content. A real eye-opener.

Biography Buff
by John Meagher

It was perhaps the most anticipated book of the year — certainly in this country — and Bono’s memoir didn’t disappoint. Surrender (Hutchinson Heinemann) tells the story of a remarkable life through the device of 40 U2 songs. It’s especially compelling when he writes about his early life and the impact of his mother’s death when he was just 14. There’s plenty for U2 fans to get stuck into, too, and his account of making several albums, including Achtung Baby, is riveting.

Bill Whelan is best known for that massive cultural phenomenon Riverdance, but his career in music has encompassed just about every genre imaginable. The Road to Riverdance (Liliput) tells the story of his early years in Limerick and his fledgling career in Dublin, where work with the likes of Van Morrison and Kate Bush secured his artistic standing while jingles for Guinness and others put bread on the table. A lively read — and a book stuffed with anecdotes.

There have been several remarkable, frank memoirs from first-time Irish writers over the past decade, and following in the footsteps of Selina Guinness and Emilie Pine comes the visual art critic Cristín Leach. The beautifully written Negative Space (Merrion Press) is a meditation on, among other things, the end of her marriage. Her eye for detail is ever-present and although she writes with great honesty about personal matters, her concerns have universal appeal.

Friends was a cultural sensation that made stars of its six principal actors. But Matthew Perry, who played Chandler, seemed to find the business of fame especially hard, and his dependency on alcohol and prescription painkillers wreaked havoc on his life. Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing (Headline) documents it all, and fans of the much-loved sitcom will find plenty to savour in his account of the making of the show.

Pop Professor
by John Meagher

The Britpop years threw up several larger-than-life characters, none more so than Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. His lyrical preoccupations always seemed markedly different to the norm, and it’s hardly a surprise that his latest book is a long way from the dash-it-out fare of many of his peers. Good Pop, Bad Pop (Jonathan Cape) is a memoir of sorts, a deep dive into his formative years through the lens of the objects and songs that first fuelled his creativity.

PP Arnold should be far better known than she is. A great American soul singer, she moved to Swinging Sixties London and sang on several of the era’s most emblematic songs. She was also a muse for several leading musicians, including Mick Jagger. The aptly named Soul Survivor (Nine Eight Books) tracks a life pockmarked by tragedy, including the death of her teenage daughter, but ultimately it’s a story of triumph against the odds.

Rock music criticism was, in the genre’s “golden era”, the preserve of men. Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and Irish writer Sinéad Gleeson are keen to highlight the female gaze when it comes to music and, together, their curated volume of essays shines a light on both women critics and artists. This Woman’s Work (White Rabbit) is a treasure trove, with essays on the Mexican-American singer Lhasa de Sela and the composer Wendy Carlos especially fascinating.

It is the most celebrated recording studio on earth, and in his exhaustive Abbey Road (Bantam), veteran rock writer David Hepworth details its 90-year history. The London studio is most famously associated with the Beatles — and Hepworth writes extensively about the Fab Four — but it’s been home to innumerable artists before and since too, and as we read here, it continues to attract musicians and dreamers of all hues.

Amateur Historian
by Kim Bielenberg

In Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (Bodley Head), Caroline Elkins explores the mission to occupy a quarter of the world’s land mass and “civilise” more than 700 million people. It is a timely account, putting into context recent controversies over slavery and statues. Pouring cold water on the idea of a benign empire that enhanced global welfare, she explores a project that at various times involved corporal punishment, detentions without trial, forced migration, killings, sexual assaults, torture and psychological terror.

In Burning the Big House (Yale University Press) Terence Dooley explains how the Irish landlord class became the inevitable victims of “receding imperialism” during the War of Independence and the Civil War. He tells the story of the destruction of the Irish country houses during the revolutionary years. During this period nearly 300 “Big Houses” — seen as symbols of conquest and colonial oppression — were burned to the ground. Dooley explores the varying motives of those who destroyed the homes, including hunger for land.

In her fascinating book, Spiritual Wounds (Irish Academic Press), Síobhra Aiken focuses on the psychological trauma suffered by those caught up in the Civil War and the earlier phases of violent conflict. Senior politicians may have preferred to avoid talking about the war, but participants’ state of mind was often captured in harrowing memoirs and autobiographical fiction, based on true events. Aiken took the title of her book from the observation of the writer and revolutionary veteran Desmond Ryan when he described the Civil War: “The deepest wounds are spiritual wounds”.

Awards Aficionado
by Tanya Sweeney

Hanya Yanaghara’s epic sprawler To Paradise (Picador) is as much of a doorstopper as her opus A Little Life, but is a book of a very different flavour. It consists of three “books”: the first reimagines the world of 19th century New York and finds David Bingham, a banking heir, in want of a husband (in the history of this alternate world, same-sex marriage has already been legalised). The second, set in 1980s New York, follows a young male paralegal having an affair with his boss against the backdrop of the Aids crisis. The third book, Zone Eight, is set in the 2090s in the aftermath of a pandemic. To Paradise is a wildly elaborate, ambitious work that asks big questions about family, totalitarian control, sexuality, plague and global warming.

Similarly hefty, Karen Joy Fowler’s Booth (Profile Books) charts the family tree of John Wilkes Booth, the stage actor who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. The remarkable story of the Booths is told through the perspective of three of these siblings: Rosalie, Asia and Edwin (chapters about Lincoln’s life are also interspersed throughout the book). An ambitious read that, despite its strong sense of time and place, has political, social and emotional resonance in the present day.

Anne Tyler is another doyenne of the all-American family, and often finds herself being mentioned in the same breath as Raymond Carver and Ann Patchett. In French Braid (Chatto & Windus), the Baltimore-based Garretts look like any other family, until their various lives are unspooled. Here, Tyler rarely loses sight of the central spine of the book: the bonds that strengthen and fray among family members.

Elizabeth Strout also focuses her considerable powers of observation on family and life in Lucy by the Sea (Viking). A follow-up to the Booker shortlisted Oh, William!, Strout’s ninth novel finds fan favourite Lucy Barton, and her family, leave her New York home for a friend’s empty beach house in Maine during the pandemic.

Sri Lankan Shehan Karunatilaka won this year’s Booker Prize for her second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Sort Of Books). Blackly funny, yet filled with empathy, this tale of a retired sports journalist who sets out to find a missing 1980s cricket star is a masterclass in magical realism.

Team Player
by Sinéad Kissane

A welcome byproduct of the unstoppable surge of women’s sport in Ireland has been the increasing number of female sports autobiographies entering a historically male domain. Hallelujah. If a glance at your sports book collection makes for nearly all-male reading, get yourself an instant upgrade with some Kellie Harrington, Clare Shine and Gemma O’Connor. Not only have they stories to tell, but their stories are very well told.

Kellie (Sandycove), written with Roddy Doyle, pulls no punches. You’re immediately drawn into Harrington’s memoir with the opening account of her in sixth class in primary school, drinking and taking pills. Her book shows that there are innumerable starting points to becoming an Olympic champion. Kellie’s story mixes the ordinary with the extraordinary and she also dishes out a few home truths about what it was really like following Katie Taylor when it came to those who were also meant to be nurturing her talent.

The difference between a public profile and the reality for a young sportswoman is portrayed with devastating effect in Clare Shine’s Scoring Goals in the Dark (Pitch Publishing), written with Gareth Maher. As Shine says: “I don’t think there is a single book from a female footballer who has been so open in this way while still playing.” She brings the reader through her alcohol addiction and mental health struggles and how it took her to the darkest of places. A must-read.

Shine is mentioned in her time as a Cork camogie player in Gemma O’Connor’s autobiography Why Not a Warrior? (Hero Books), written with Sinéad Farrell. O’Connor is the most decorated camogie player of all-time and this memoir also deals with sexuality in sport and Irish life.

Head Chef
by Bairbre Power

During the pandemic, I “travelled” in my kitchen, and my old cookery books delivered solace and a host of world flavours. Now we are back working in the office again, the week-night dinner, that old culinary chestnut, is raising its head again. You will find lots of inspiring ideas in the new Avoca At Home (Sandycove). It’s been a while since Avoca published a new book and its latest is a handsome tome with inspiring ideas — and, best of all, it offers solutions and alternatives to ordering another takeaway.

There were so many new titles out this year for bakers and dessert fiends. While I enjoyed Nadiya’s Everyday Baking from Nadiya Hussain (Penguin Michael Joseph), winner of the sixth series of The Great British Bake Off, I have to hand the gold medal in this category to JR Ryall’s Ballymaloe Desserts (Phaidon). It is a remarkable debut cookbook from the head pastry chef at Ballymaloe House, whose sweet trolley won a best in the world prize in 2019. The clarity of the photography by Cliodhna Prendergast only adds to this book’s gorgeousness.

Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Extra Good Things (Ebury) by Noor Murad and Yotam Ottolenghi lives up to its title with an emphasis on “extra”. I really liked the bendy paperback format. Hardcore Yotam fans out there will find lots to interest them.

The Fast Five: Shortcuts to Deliciousness (Fourth Estate) by Donna Hay is a total honey of book, full of time-saving, up-flavoured riffs, and the design of the book is as delicious as the recipes from this Australian superstar.

Instagram Addict
by Tanya Sweeney

Jennette McCurdy’s funny/sad memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died (Simon & Schuster) has been one of the year’s most talked-about books, and not just because of its outrageous title. McCurdy became a child actress at the behest of her overbearing mother and went on to find success in the Nickelodeon show iCarly. She eventually found herself dealing with eating disorders, addiction and her mother’s on-off cancer battle. Not surprisingly, McCurdy has landed a seven-figure book deal in the wake of her memoir’s popularity.

Una Leonard’s Sweet Therapy: The Joy of Baking (Hachette Ireland) may look like another sugar-sprinkled baking book, but there’s more to her life than just sweet treats. Discussing loss, suicidal thoughts, disordered eating and the long path back to herself, Leonard offers a compelling account of a young woman looking for a foothold in the world, and finding it in her new bakery.

Comedian Colm O’Regan delivered the conversational Climate Worrier: A Hypocrite’s Guide to Saving the World (HarperCollins), which is likely to appeal to a great many people who are intent on reducing their carbon footprint but don’t know where to start. Informative and quick-witted, this book is the perfect way into the sustainability conversation for novices.

Fellow comedian/vlogger Sophie McCartney released Tired and Tested: The Wild Ride into Parenthood (Harper North), a perfect antidote to the stresses and strains of new parenting. The parenting arm of book publishing is groaning at the seams with new voices, and McCartney stands out as one of the most original and refreshing. While rarely glossing over the less lovely parts of being a parent, this memoir is instantly relatable, chock-full of personality and brutally honest.

Political Animal
by Kim Bielenberg

Shane Ross gives a colourful account of the Sinn Féin leader’s rise to the brink of power in Mary Lou McDonald: A Republican Riddle (Atlantic). The author may not be every republican’s cup of tea, but this is far from a hatchet job. The former senator dispels the notion that McDonald’s upbringing was one of unalloyed privilege. Her father is portrayed as a “character” who got into scrapes. She was first drawn to Fianna Fáil and, as Ross tells it, Brian Lenihan Jr pleaded with her: “Mary Louise (sic), for God’s sake, don’t leave us and join that crowd of hoodlums in Sinn Féin.”

The story of Irish politics since early 2020 has, for most of the period, been the tale of Covid-19 and the country’s response to it at the top. In Pandemonium (Gill Books), Jack Horgan-Jones and Hugh O’Connell give a detailed account of how ministers and officials succeeded and failed, leaked and counter-leaked, and occasionally fell out spectacularly. It includes details of a bizarre proposal for an intrusive surveillance system that was to monitor CCTV, credit card transactions and even takeaway habits. Fortunately, it was poo-pooed by chief medical officer Tony Holohan, who dubbed it “a load of horseshit”.

Maggie Haberman justifies yet another addition to the shelf-loads of Donald Trump biographies with her insightful Confidence Man (HarperCollins). We are all familiar with the malign figure of the 45th US president, but Haberman also portrays “Good’’ Trump, a man capable of unexpected kindness. She tells how those who meet him for the first time are often disarmed, seeing someone not at all like the angry fuming voice of his public persona.

Wannabe Detective
by Myles McWeeney

Nicola White’s The Burning Boy (Viper) is set in 1986 in pre-gentrification Temple Bar, where Dublin’s hidden gay culture thrives. The complex and satisfying mystery charts the efforts of murder squad detectives Vincent Swan and Gina Considine to find justice for a murdered young gay colleague against the wishes of their homophobic colleagues.

In Arlene Hunt’s While She Sleeps (Hachette), the young, good-looking and talented Jody Kavanagh has almost been beaten to death. The oddly matched team of Inspector Elliot Ryan and Sergeant Nola Kane must catch the culprit in this witty and cleverly plotted mystery.

Ian Rankin’s delightful A Heart Full of Headstones (Little, Brown and Company) finds retired DI John Rebus’s friend and former colleague DI Siobhan Clarke forced to take on crippled crook Maurice ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty to prevent Rebus ending up in jail. Look out, too, for Crookedwood (Hachette), an excellent psychological mystery by Liza Costello, in which Sarah, a rising culinary star in Dublin, returns reluctantly to her hometown to help her mother sell the family farm, but finds her old community deeply divided and dangerous.

To Kill a Troubadour (Quercus) by Martin Walker is the latest adventure in the life of Bruno Courrèges, the chief of police of the small French town of St Denis in the Dordogne. Busy organising the town’s annual music festival, which will star controversial folk group Les Troubadours, Bruno is startled to discover that an assassination attempt may be made on the night. Totally charming all the way.

Visionary
by Darragh McManus

The O’Brien Press is really setting the standard for picture books: for reasons of space, we will here limit ourselves to Ireland’s Islands by Carsten Krieger and Richard Creagh. This sublime photographic journey around the Irish coast is something special. The photos are gorgeous; accompanying text gives context on the islands, beaches, villages, history and wildlife. It’s a feast for the eyes and balm for the soul.

Another nautical book, The Great Lighthouses of Ireland (Gill) is accompaniment to author David Hare’s excellent recent TV series. It’s not all picturesque scenic shots, though there are plenty of those to take the breath away; Hare also includes fascinating images of lifeboat crews, lighthouse plans and interiors, old maritime maps, paintings of storms and rescues at sea. Extensive and informative text rounds out the package.

A lovely little thing, the National Gallery of Ireland Diary 2023 (Gill Books) offers one beautiful painting from the gallery’s collection for each week of the year, plus a little piece on the artist and the featured work. It brings a bit of culture to the chore of marking down appointments and reminders.

Poetic Soul
by Enda Wyley

This year, to mark the centenary of the birth of a unique poet and writer, My Name Suspended in the Air: Leland Bardwell at 100, edited by Libby Hart, was published by Lepus Print, Sligo. In this exquisite collection of her poetry, selected by women who knew and loved her, each poem is accompanied by personal reflections by contributing poets and writers. A perfect Christmas gift that celebrates Bardwell’s enduring legacy as a poet and an inspiring companion to the recently published magnificent Leland Bardwell: Collected Poems, edited by John McLachlan (Salmon Poetry).

Mark Roper’s Beyond Stillness (Dedalus Press) explores this fine poet’s relationship with the damaged natural world. “Third planet from the sun, what have we done, what have we done…” the opening poem laments. It’s a timely collection, and is a moving reminder of how much we need nature.

Vital Signs: Poems of Illness and Healing (Poetry Ireland) edited by Martin Dyar, with a foreword by President Michael D Higgins, is a humane collection that features a diverse selection of poems from Irish and international poets: Patrick Kavanagh, Eavan Boland, Raymond Carver, Nithy Kasa and many more. A memorable testament to the fragility of being human.