How Irish politics really works: an insider’s manual

By John Drennan Gill & Macmillan, €17

Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince has been a favourite book of many dubious characters over the centuries. Napoleon Bonaparte, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin all read it and left behind personal comments on where they thought the Italian diplomat was right or wrong. When JR Ewing died in Dallas, he left a copy to his nephew with the advice to “use it, because being smart and sneaky ...