January's Read - Cavan Reading Group

Bear in mind these dead by Susan McKay

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Susan McKay’s book explores the difficult aftermath of the violence for families, friends and communities. By interviewing those who loved the missing and the dead, as well as some who narrowly survived, McKay gives a voice to those who are too often overlooked in the political histories. She has found grief and rage, as well as forgiveness. Some long to forget, others cannot rest until they find out the truth. Some demand a measure of justice. They face formidable odds, for there are those with strong interests in keeping parts of the history of the Troubles in the dark. The devolved government in Northern Ireland is working towards a new future for all the people. This book is a moving and important contribution to that process. Only by confronting the brutality of the past can there be any hope that the dead may finally be laid to rest.

January's Read - Bailieborough Reading Group

The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson

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In 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her.

And sure enough, one day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door. After years of guilt and searching, Annika's mother has come to claim her daughter, who is in fact a Prussian aristocrat and whose true home is a great castle. But at crumbling, spooky Spittal Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in the lives of her new-found family. Eva Ibbotson's hugely entertaining story is a timeless classic for readers young and old.

January's Read - Cootehill Reading Group

Solace by Belinda McKeown

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Winner of the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards Sunday Independent Best Newcomer of the Year Award for 2011 and shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2011.

Mark Casey did not expect to fall in love. But from the minute he saw Joanne Lynch across the garden of a Dublin pub, it seemed that nothing else was possible. Soon they start a relationship that is as chaotic and exciting as the city they share. But Mark is also drawn back guiltily to his family and the land they have farmed for generations and he discovers the truth behind a feud that threatens to destroy this passionate love affair. Just as they appear to have brought the warring factions together, one single tragic moment undoes everything.

Solace is a beautiful, breathtaking story about the city and the country, the old and the new, the thrill of new love and the inescapable bond between parents and children. 'A novel of quiet power, filled with moments of carefully-told truth' Colm Toibin, author of Brooklyn 

'Elegant, consuming and richly inspired. Superb.' Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin

'Powerful and beautifully paced ...I was totally gripped.' Catherine O'Flynn, author of What Was Lost

'A wonderful novel. I was deeply moved. Outstanding.' John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

This Week's Recommended Read

The Dinner by Herman Koch

A summer's evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse - the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen year old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children, and as civility and friendship disintegrates, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

First published in the Netherlands in 2009.

'Funny, provocative and exceedingly dark, this is a brilliantly addictive novel that wraps its hands around your throat on page one and doesn't let go.' SJ Watson.

'What a tremendous book. I loved every single gripping and strange thing about it.' MJ Hyland '

Christmas Themed Reads

Get in the festive mood - with these great Christmas Reads..Click on the book images to reserve a copy. All you need is your library card & pin number!

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

 

A Perfect Christmas by Lynda Page

Comfort and Joy by India Knight

A Merry Little Christmas by Debbie Macomber

December's Read - Cavan Reading Group

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

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Palestine, 1948. A mother clutches her six-month old son as Israeli soldiers march through the village of Ein Hod. In a split second, her son is snatched from her arms and the fate of the Abulheja family is changed forever. Forced into a refugee camp in Jenin and exiled from the ancient village that is their lifeblood, the family struggles to rebuild their world. Their stories unfold through the eyes of the youngest sibling, Amal, the daughter born in the camp who will eventually find herself alone in the United States: the eldest son who loses everything in the struggle for freedom and the stole son who grows up as an Israeli, becoming an enemy soldier to his own brother.

Recommended Read of the Week

The hundred year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

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It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson. Sitting quietly in his room in an old people's home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin. The mayor is going to be there. The press is going to be there. But, as it turns out, Allan is not...Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into the flowerbed (in his slippers) and makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, we learn something of Allan's earlier life in which - remarkably - he helped to make the atom bomb, became friends with American presidents, Russian tyrants, and Chinese leaders, and was a participant behind the scenes in many key events of the twentieth century. Already a huge bestseller across Europe, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared is a fun, feel-good book for all ages. Translated from Swedish.