Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Jason O'Toole

Meet Ireland's new Taoiseach, Brian Cowen 
 
Despite a high profile at the centre of Irish political life for more than twenty years, relatively little is known about our new leader. Just who is Brian Cowen? 
 
The story begins in the village of Clara, Co. Offaly, where family, local life and the GAA were formative influences. The sudden and unexpected death of his father, Ber Cowen, Fianna Fáil TD for Laois Offaly, thrust a twenty-four year-old Cowen into the heart of Irish politics. 
 
After an eight-year apprenticeship on the back benches, Cowen was appointed to his first ministerial position by Albert Reynolds and later went on to hold the senior cabinet positions of Health, Foreign Affairs and Finance. By the time of Bertie Ahern's resignation, Cowen's standing in the party was such that his election to the leadership of Fianna Fáil seemed inevitable. On 7 May 2008, Brian Cowen became Ireland's eleventh Taoiseach. 
 
Here, for the first time, is a portrait of Brian Cowen which follows his remarkable life story, tracing the road to power from early childhood right up to his eventful early months in the office of An Taoiseach.

Brian Cowen

The Path to Power

Morey Bernstein

'I want you to keep on going back and back in your mind. And strange as it may seem you will find that there are other scenes in your memory. There are other scenes from faraway lands and distant places...' 
 
Bridey Murphy died over a century ago. A hundred years later, a normal American housewife lived Bridey's life under hypnosis, painting an utterly convincing picture of life in nineteenth-century Ireland. 
 
A sensational bestseller when it was first published, this edition, thorougly updated and revised, also addresses the critics of the Bridey Murphy sessions.

The Search For Bridey Murphy

Gene Kerrigan

Ireland’s economic collapse hit with bewildering speed and cut deep into many lives. At a time when we most needed leadership, our politicians let us down, telling us we were all to blame for the recession and that we just needed to suffer a little pain to make everything right again. It was a Big Lie. 
This book offers an alternative view to the official cover story of austerity. It’s about the great majority of us who weren’t gambling with our future. It’s about what’s being done to us, who is doing it and why. It’s also about who benefits from this and who gets it in the neck. And what we might do about that. 
Gene Kerrigan delves deep into the muddy waters of the boom and crash, the chaos in the banks, the intervention by the troika and the erosion of democracy. He looks at how the Dáil and the media became full of mindless free market cheerleaders, how the country became laden down with unregulated bankers, and how the government acquiesced in imposing a destructive programme of austerity on the Irish people. 
Meanwhile, the elites in our society wrap the green flag around themselves, calling for sacrifice and patriotism, while they hold on fiercely to every perk and privilege. 
It’s time to tell the truth.

The Big Lie - Who Profits From Ireland’s Austerity?

Kitty Holland

Seventeen weeks pregnant and facing a miscarriage, Savita Halappanavar and her husband Praveen walked into an Irish maternity ward in October 2012. Unwittingly, the couple also walked into that deeply controversial arena in which Ireland’s legislative position on abortion remained unresolved. 
A week later, Savita was dead from septicaemia. Reports of her death and of the refusal to allow Savita a termination of her pregnancy sent shockwaves across Ireland and around the world. Once again the subject of abortion was catapulted to the very top of the agenda in Ireland. With the pro-life and pro-choice camps claiming the moral high ground, both sides in the bitterly contested battle sought to appropriate Savita’s story and her image. 
In the midst of the ensuing rage and furore, the marches and protests, the threats and counter-threats that exploded across political and media platforms, Savita and the complete circumstances of her death were lost. 
In Savita: The Tragedy That Shook A Nation, Kitty Holland addresses this imbalance as she reveals the truth behind the headlines and explores many unanswered questions: Who was Savita? How significant was it that she was a non-Irish, non-Catholic woman in search of help on Irish soil? And how did her husband and her community’s reaction to her death shape the parameters of the debate which followed? Holland’s exposé also looks at how the tragic circumstances of Savita’s death played a part in compelling the Irish Government to finally legislate on abortion and how activists on each side succeeded or failed in shaping that legislation.

Savita: The Tragedy that shook a nation

Colm O'Regan

Colm O’Regan’s massive bestseller Isn’t It Well For Ye? The Book of Irish Mammies brought the wonderful world of the Irish Mammy to homes across Ireland, where it took pride of place alongside the good scissors and the bit of string that might come in handy someday. And now, before you can say “Is it that time already?”, Irish Mammy is back with more words of wisdom. 
That’s More Of It Now: The Second Book of Irish Mammies takes us even deeper into this parallel universe, with advice on everything from how to tell Mammy she is about to become a Granny to how to discipline a child (aged 0–45), touching on Irish Mammies’ role in the worlds of sport, the workplace, technology, religion and culture. Enjoy popular fairy-tales retold with an Irish Mammy at the centre of them; marvel at exclusive, not-yet-released scenes from the epic Game of Scones; and find some essential apps for the Modern Mammy’s tablet. 
Probably the most important sequel since The Godfather Part II, or at least Fifty Shades Darker, That’s More Of It Now will find a place in everybody’s heart (and stocking). Just don’t leave it on a damp step.

That's More Of It Now

The Second Book Of Irish Mammies

A BOOK if you don’t mind! And him with a degree and a job and all. 
 
Everyone should have an Irish Mammy. She’s never short of advice, a kind word and a cup of tea (making sure to scald the teapot first, of course). 
 
Bring the coat anyway. If it’s too hot you can take it off. 
 
Comedian Colm O’Regan explores the phenomenon of the Irish Mammy and what she might say about everything from the ‘new mass’ to the cardinal sin of not owning a cough bottle and the importance of airing clothes properly. The global influence of the Irish Mammy, through history, science, politics and literature, is undeniable. Did you know, for instance, that Hamlet had an Irish Mammy? 
 
So if you’re an Irish Mammy, have one, know one or suspect you might be turning into one, this book will act as your guide. But be aware that though this book might think it knows it all, it doesn’t, only Mammy knows it all.

Isn't It Well For Ye?: The Book of Irish Mammies

Declan Lynch

Travel a road rich in possibilities and fraught with danger ... 
 
Journalist Declan Lynch's journey begins with a deposit of €100 in an online betting account, kicking off an honest attempt to explore the mysterious allure of gambling. Braving Paddy Power, the Premiership and Belgian women's tennis tournaments on Eurosport, Lynch's darkly humorous diary entries reveal the strange logic behind the punt - and of course there's always the chance of winning a little free money along the way. 
 
Drawing on the wise words of sages from Dostoevsky to Corleone to explain, justify and occasionally even excuse his predilection for a punt, Lynch offers a rare glimpse inside the mind of that ever-sanguine individual - the gambler.

Free Money

Marc Coleman

We're in the midst of a global economic crisis and a domestic economic disaster. 
 
But enough of the hand-wringing. Where did this all come from, where are we now and, most importantly, what's going to happen next? 
 
In a compelling and jargon-free argument, economist Marc Coleman makes sense of this mess we're in with clear, accessible analysis of Ireland's economic situation and where it might be heading. 
 
Addressing first the global dimension - how early warnings were ignored, why American monetary policy failed the world and why an unfinished revolution in globalisation left us defenceless - Coleman makes a case for a new kind of capitalism. 
 
The unravelling threads that created the Irish financial crisis are also untangled. The death of competitiveness, the mismanagement of tax revenues, issues of demographics, bad urban planning, stupid banks and an unsuccessful regulator are all examined and, combined with dysfunctional politics, are shown to be the root causes of the predicament we now find ourselves in. 
 
But all is not lost. 
 
With a positive, can-do approach to the economic crisis, Coleman creates a fix-it manual for the future, explaining how Ireland can prosper again by adopting a smart economy, reforming social partnership and curing a warped fiscal cycle with budgetary and electoral reform. 
 
Ireland's economic nightmare will end. It is a dream not destroyed, merely delayed.

Back From The Brink

Ireland's Road to Recovery

Emma Freud

Clement Freud, who died suddenly in April 2009, was a man of many parts. His life embraced a variety of careers, including TV chef, gambler, owner of a night club and several racehorses, radio broadcaster, adventurer and - not least - Member of Parliament. Yet, as his son Matthew declared at his funeral, it was Freud's writing that brought us closest to the man. 
 
In addition to several books - notably the children's book Grimble (1968), Freud on Food (1978), The Book of Hangovers (1981) and a volume of autobiography, Freud Ego (2001) - he wrote on a vast range of subjects for newspapers and magazines, including the Observer, Sun, Financial Times, Sporting Life, Daily Mail, Tatler, Guardian, New Yorker and Racing Post. A Feast of Freud presents a generous helping of Clement Freud's best and most humorous writing on a broad sweep of topics, including his consuming passions of food, sport, politics and the absurdity of the human condition, reflecting his extraordinarily varied life through the prism of his distinctive deadpan humour. 
 
From the pen of the man who once joked of being 'out-grandfathered' by the younger Winston Churchill comes this richly stocked volume that every Freud fan, no matter in which of his many lives they encountered him, will treasure.

A Feast of Freud

The wittiest writings of Clement Freud

Margaret Humphreys

Also published as Empty Cradles. 
 
In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, right up until as recently as 1970. 
 
Many were told that their parents were dead, and parents often believed that their children had been adopted in Britain. In fact, for many children it was to be a life of horrendous physical and sexual abuse far away from everything they knew. Margaret reveals how she unravelled this shocking secret and how it became her mission to reunite these innocent and unwilling exiles with their families in Britain before it was too late.

Oranges and Sunshine

Empty Cradles

Julia Gillard

‘[This] should be required reading for anyone who says feminism’s work is done.’ (Evening Standard) 
 
Here, in her own words, Julia Gillard reveals what life was really like as Australia’s first female prime minister. 
 
‘I was prime minister for three years and three days. Three years and three days of resilience. Three years and three days of changing the nation. Three years and three days for you to judge.’ 
 
____________________ 
 
On Wednesday, 23 June 2010, with the government in turmoil, Julia Gillard asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for a leadership ballot. 
 
The next day, Julia Gillard became Australia’s twenty-seventh – and first female – prime minister. Australia was alive to the historic possibilities. Here was a new approach for a new time. 
 
It was to last three extraordinary years. 
 
This is Julia Gillard’s chronicle of that turbulent time, a strikingly candid self-portrait of a political leader seeking to realize her ideals. It is her story of what it was like – in the face of government in-fighting and often hostile media – to: 
 
 Manage a hung parliament 
 
 Build a diverse and robust economy 
 
 Create an equitable and world-class education system 
 
 Ensure a dignified future for Australians with disabilities 
 
And doing this all while meeting international obligations and building strategic alliances for the future. This is a politician driven by a sense of purpose – from campus days with the Australian Union of Students, to a career in the law, to her often gritty, occasionally glittering rise up the ranks of the Australian Labour Party. 
 
Julia Gillard does not shy away from her mistakes, admitting freely to errors, misjudgements and policy failures, as well as detailing her political successes. This dazzling memoir is a reflection of what it means – and what it takes – to be a female leader in contemporary politics.

My Story

John Crace

Exactly a week after the general election, two men – ‘Call me Dave’ and ‘Call me Nick’ – walked side by side into the rose garden of No. 10 Downing Street to give their first press-conference as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, looking for all the world like men in love. It was a romance in which people wanted to believe. But it was also one that people couldn't help but mistrust. Most unnerving, however, was the sense that they both couldn't quite believe their luck. 
 
Cameron: I can't believe it. All those people out there just for us ... 
Clegg: I know. It's mad, isn't it? I have to keep pinching myself as well. 
Cameron: Go on say it again ... 
Clegg: What? 
Cameron: Call me Prime Minister ... 
 
The storms the Dave and Nick partnership would have to face (same sex marriage, plebgate, triple dip recession, riots ...) were then unclear. Now, almost five years on, this up-to-the-minute portrait of Westminster and the forthcoming General Election exposes the realities of the Coalition, while offering an indispensible guide to a half-decade of madness: 
 
· * Foreign Policy - The new 'special relationship' - William Hague and Angelina Jolie 
· * The Economy - Osborne finally cracks it: boom in London; bust everywhere else. 
· * Immigration - should the entire population of Bulgaria pick strawberries for us? 
· * The Opposition - how Labour got the wrong Miliband. 
Includes: 
* UKIP, PPI, ISIS and other dubious acronyms. 
· * The countdown to the General Election 2015: five years of planning since the last one. 
Insightful, painful, very funny, this is a must-read for all of us with a vote, whichever side we thought we were on.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

A Short Guide to Modern Politics, the Coalition and the General Election

Eric Haney

The story of America's elite military unit told by one of its founding members 
 
They are the U.S. Army's most élite top secret strike force. They dominate the modern battlefield, but you won't hear about their heroics on CNN. No headlines can reveal their top-secret missions; and no book has ever taken readers inside-until now. Here, a founding member of Delta Force takes us behind the veil of secrecy and into the action-to reveal the never-before-told story of 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-D (Delta Force). 
 
INSIDE DELTA FORCE 
 
In this dramatic behind-the-scenes chronicle, Eric Haney, one of the founding members of Delta Force, takes us inside this legendary unit from the beginning. Here, for the first time, are details of the grueling selection process, designed to break the strongest of men, that singles out the perfect soldier, and then the years of training that turns him into the ultimate modern warrior that is the Delta Force Operator. 
 
From fighting guerrilla warfare in Honduras to close VIP protection in Beirut, from rescuing missionaries in Sudan to the abortive attempt to extract American hostages from Tehran, and leading the way onto the island of Grenada, Eric Haney captures the daring and discipline that distinguish the men of Delta Force. Inside Delta Force puts the reader right at the heart of the action and gives a breathtaking glimpse of a life that is as driven, inspiring and terrifying as they come. 
 
Eric L. Haney, Command Sergeant Major, USA (Ret.), served for more than twenty years in the United States Army's most demanding combat units: as a combat infantryman, a Ranger, and ultimately as a founding member of Delta Force. In his retirement, Haney has protected princes, presidents and CEOs alike.

Inside Delta Force

Dog Personalities

We all know that dogs have personalities as colourful and unique as any human. They can be confident and dominant - born leaders - or shy and timid. They can be obedient, laid back, cheeky or stubborn. They can be prima donnas, stroppy so-and-sos or lazy sods - just like us. 
 
With so many characters you'll recognise, and based on the Instagram account with hundreds of thousands of followers, Dog Personalities reveals ours canine counterparts, all with imaginative backstories and photographs guaranteed to make you smile.

Timothy Ferriss

Timothy Ferris, bestselling author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way, brilliantly synthesizes inner and outer space with a penetrating examination into the nature of the universe and the human brain that perceives it. Through the lenses of two innovative fields of scientific research - neuroscience and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI - Ferris brings into focus a startling new vision of the relationship between mind and universe. 
 
Whether he is contemplating the possibility of otherwordly life-forms or pondering the consequences of virtual reality computer technology, Timothy Ferris captures our sense of wonder with a lucid and imaginative look at one of modern science's greatest challenges; how we can understand, interpret and, ultimately, reconcile the equally mysterious realms of mind and universe. From ancient Stone Age burial mounds to today's state-of-the-art laboratories, solving this eternal riddle has been the goal of philosophers and mystics, occultists and poets, alchemists and scientists. In The Mind's Sky, Ferris examines the 'dance' between mind and cosmos, showing how the universe is partly a construct of the mind itself and asking whether intelligence - far from being a product of our world alone - may have universal currency. 
 
Ferris considers the intriguing complexity of the human brain and what constitutes real intelligence. Laughter, near-death experiences, athletic performance ('Joe Montana's Premotor Cortex'), the neurobiology of mystical experience, and a subtle mental program called 'the interpreter' are all part of his freewheeling quest into the nature of consciousness. 
 
Ferris advances the provocative thesis that SETI, our current search for life on other planets, could reward the human race with the fruit of cosmic knowledge - or prove as cataclysmic as Eve's desire for the apple. And he gives us an inside look at IT - information theory - a new philosophy of knowledge and communication. 
 
Filled with the combination of scientific fact, human anecdote, and provocative insight that has become his trademark, Timothy Ferris's The Mind's Sky offers a rare, life-enhancing perception of our world and our cosmos and underscores the unique choices we face as a species capable of deciding our own fate on the planet - and among the stars.

The Mind's Sky

Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context

Sarah Ryle

From one man’s Hackney market stall to a company serving fifty million customers in thirteen countries every week, this is the extraordinary story of one of Britain’s most remarkable companies. Told by those who themselves feature in it – Tesco’s own employees – it relates a fascinating social history as well as an epic business venture. 
 
Drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with Tesco staff, collected by National Life Stories at the British Library, these personal accounts from across the decades are frank, insightful, sometimes funny and, above all, very human. 
 
How, then, did Tesco grow from Jack Cohen’s barrow in Hackney to the hypermarkets in Hungary and Thailand and a home-delivery service to customers from Cheshire to the Czech Republic? Why and how did Tesco survive and (mostly) thrive where other British companies stalled? And what impact has Tesco’s success had on its employees and consumers? Here is Tesco’s authentic story, carefully researched and engagingly written by Sarah Ryle, told for the first time by the people at the very heart of the business.

The Making of Tesco

A Story of British Shopping

Melody Ermachild Chavis

Meena founded the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan in 1977 as a twenty-year-old Kabul University student. She was assassinated in 1987 at the age of thirty, and lives on in the hearts of all progressive Muslim women. Her voice, speaking for freedom, has never been silenced. The compelling story of Meena's struggle for democracy and women's rights in Afghanistan will inspire young women throughout the world. 
 
MEENA: HEROINE OF AFGHANISTAN is a compelling portrait of a courageous mother, poet and leader who symbolizes an entire movement of women that can influence the fate of nations. It is also a riveting account of a singular political career whose legacy has been inherited by RAWA, the women who hold the keys to a peaceful future for Afghanistan. RAWA has authorized this first-ever biography of their martyred founder.

Meena: Heroine Of Afghanistan

Mary Gwynn

Do you remember the arrival of the fish finger, the rise and fall of Angel Delight, Vesta curries and Wimpy hamburgers? Did you own a fondue set or host a Tupperware party, or were you starving yourself on the Cabbage Soup Diet? Was life always too short to stuff a mushroom? And what was the point of Nouvelle Cuisine? 
There has been a revolution in our kitchens. In 1950, the average housewife worked a seventy-five-hour week. No one owned a fridge or had seen a teabag, let alone an avocado or a Curly Wurly . Ten years later, sugar consumption had rocketed: we ate more biscuits for dinner than vegetables and fruit. It was not until the mid 1990s that we started to worry about ‘five a day’. And now, nearly twenty years on from the first vegetable-box delivery scheme, we are fatter than ever before . . . Has there ever been a golden age of the family meal? 
 Full of delicious detail, this marvellous companion to the BBC series is rich with nostalgia and provides a feast of extraordinary factual nuggets. Who can guess the filling of the first pre-packed sandwich in 1984? And who could have foreseen then that a kitchen robot that can write your shopping list is now just around the corner? 
Reflecting all the fads and fashions that have graced our table, Back in Time for Dinner is much more than a book about dinner; it holds a mirror to our changing family lives.

Back In Time For Dinner

From Spam to Sushi: How We've Changed the Way We Eat

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