Books Courting: A warm observation on looking for love in the countrysideIsolation, long hours, early mornings, farm inheritance – journalist Liadán Hynes touchingly reveals the struggles faced by those searching for romance in Ireland’s fields of dreams
Book Review Dark Music: A Scandi noir slow-burner that fails to catch fireDavid Lagercrantz, known for his association with Millennium creator Stieg Larsson, has launched his own crime-writing career with an international political thriller that doesn’t quite manage to thrill
Book Review The Bullet That Missed: Ageing sleuths bring wit and wisdom to entertaining detective storyRichard Osman, the television presenter and writer, brings a group of septuagenarians together again in his third novel to solve a cold case in a warm-hearted and quintessentially English murder mystery
Book Review The White Rock – Intriguing story jumps between eras on a small Mexican islandEnglish author Anna Hope has written a beguiling four-part story in which the very essence of time seems to turn back on itself
Book Review The Saint of Lost Things: Novel never loses its humanity in portrayal of a troubled lifeBorn the ‘wrong child’ into an unhappy family, the heroine of Tish Delaney’s second novel is a scarred but likeable character who has to survive life in a Church-ridden and suspicious close-knit community
Book Review The Written Word – Kevin Power brings warmth and humanity to a gamut of cultural topics This collection of Kevin Power’s finest criticism and cultural appraisal is a joy to read, full of warmth, humour, humanity and intellectual rigour
Books Book review: Ruth and Pen: A Novel – Warm and engaging debut with plenty of depthAfter an acclaimed collection of essays, Emilie Pine dips her toe into fiction for the first time with impressive results
Online dating for the over-50s: You hear horror stories – d**k pics, lies and scams – but my impression was that Irish men are basically decent and just looking for a human connectionMid-life break-ups are on the increase and many people might be thinking about dipping their toe back in the dating pool, but with most relationships now being initiated online, Estelle Birdy looks at how to go about it
Undernose Farm Revisited: Many gems to be found in Crosbie collectionThe developer turned author writes affectionately about his home town of Dublin and the docklands with its wealth of characters and stories
Crossroads: Franzen triumphs with intricate and entertaining family portraitJonathan Franzen creates a world populated with vivid and intriguing characters in the first book of a trilogy covering the lives of the seemingly ordinary Hildebrandt family