Lorna Cuddy was used to getting feature story suggestions from her dad back home. Most centred on five-legged donkeys or the dangers of fairy forts. However, none fascinated the Pulitzer-winning, Irish-born writer, as much as this one. This time, he was part of the story. And so was she. Her dad

The Confession of Peadar Gibbons

Literature & Fiction

Varley, Declan

Literary

Dalzell Press

In a series of interlinking episodes and intertwining stories, The Sugar Sugar Cafe book looks at the lives, lived out in quiet (or not so quiet) desperation, of a cast of 'ordinary' individuals in a small town on the outskirts of Cork city in Ireland in the dark days after the 2008 financial crash. The action centres on The Sugar Sugar Café - a small, 'greasy spoon' café in Rathluirc - but encompasses other locations as far flung as Manila and New York city, as the story shifts between past and present, between comedy and tragedy, between fantasy and grim reality. A bleak yet compelling narrative, told through the alternating perspectives of each of the key characters, hammers home the extent to which, for so many people, daily life is mostly taken up with a gruelling struggle to simply get by, and isolation and frustration are an inevitable part of the everyday routine. This sense of hopelessness is alleviated, however, by many moments of dark humour - and above all, by the rich and often surprising inner lives of these individuals, into which we as readers are given a privileged glimpse. As the novel progresses, each character reaches their own individual point of crisis. Some will look disaster squarely in the face and manage to sidestep its worst consequences; others will plunge with a kind of fatalistic enthusiasm into fresh setback and new worlds of pain. The common denominator in all of their stories is a realisation that many of the key structures of modern society - family, church, romantic relationships, work, school, the justice system - all the things we are taught to aspire to - are woefully inadequate in helping us navigate the crushing realities of the daily grind. Dark and yet funny, tragic and yet comic, the 'nasty, brutish and short' lives depicted in this compelling novel are rescued from despair by the deep humanity and compassion of the writer who has conceived them. Micheal Sheehan (Micheál O'Síocháin) was born in Gorey, Co. Wexford in 1962 and grew up Co. Cork. He has lived and worked in Barcelona, Laredo, Washington DC and London, and has now returned to his hometown of Charleville. He currently works as a lecturer in accounting in LIT Limerick, and is married with three children. Since 2010, Micheal has had numerous short stories short- or long-listed for national awards, including the William Trevor award, the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year competition and the Penguin/RTE short story award. In 2017, he won the Over the Edge short story competition, as well as their New Writer of the Year 2017/8 award. The Sugar Sugar Café is Micheal's first novel

The Sugar Sugar Café: A Novel

Sheehan, Michael

'This is a committed and compassionate work which I read in one sitting-it introduces a fresh new voiceand I have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending it to readers.I enjoyed it very much.' Patrick McCabe "Then the leaves whispered, the branches creaked. Something was up above, watching.Hello?She could feel eyes upon her. She knew she was not alone anymore: Who

The Glass Door

Clarke, R.M.

‘I love Liam and his writing for three reasons. One, he tells it fearlessly like it is, as he is, and not under some sheepish pseudonym. Two, just because he tells it like it is, doesn't mean it's true. Like all great comic writers, he polishes a grain of truth until it’s a pearl of pleasure and beautifully-crafted debauchery that still smells true. Three, unless he's been lying to me, Liam is a deeply flawed individual with a heart of gold whose life is even more interesting than the stuff he makes up.’ Dr Phil Hammond, author of ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor’ and Private Eye’s 'MD' columnist‘A unique voice that combines insight, humour, and an often surreal style.’ Richard Smith, BMJ editor-in-chief 1991-2004‘Razor sharp wit and allure. His personal account of his addiction is one of the most compelling I have ever read.’Chris Smith, The Naked Scientist‘General practice is the great unknown. We stand on the cusp of the beyond.Science takes us only so far, then the maps stop in the grey areas of intuition,imagination and feelings: here be dragons. Lurching from heart-breaking tragedy to high farce, we are the Renaissance men and women of medicine; our art is intangible. Anything can walk through our door…’Family doctor, Irishman, musician, award-winning author, anarchist and recovering morphine addict, Liam became a columnist for the BMJ in 1994. He went on to write for many major publications, winning a series of prestigious awards; in 2005, he was the first doctor to win Columnist of the Year in the Periodical Publishers Association awards.The book contains a selection of Liam’s best work, from his columns, blogs and short stories.Brilliantly funny, glittering with literary allusion and darkly wicked humour, this book is much more than a collection of stand-alone anecdotes and whimsical reflections, rather a compelling chronicle of the daily struggles – and personal costs – of a doctor at the coalface.Dr Liam Farrell was a family doctor on the Irish border and is an award-winning writer and seasoned broadcaster. He was a columnist for the British Medical Journal for 20 years and currently writes for GP, the leading publication for general practitioners in the UK. He has also been a columnist for The Lancet, the Journal of General Practice, the Belfast Telegraph and the Irish News. He wrote the entry on sex for The Oxford Companion to the Body. On Twitter he curates #Irishmed, a weekly global ‘tweetchat’ on all medical issues.

Are You the F**king Doctor?: Tales from the bleeding edge of medicine

Medical Books

Farrell, Dr Liam

Medicine

Tugboat Stories is a modern day Life on the Mississippi, with a touch of Moby Dick (in the detailed yet lyrical description of the boats, their work, and the people that work them), exploring one of the core themes of a uniquely American experience − life on the river − written by one who has lived it in one of the great harbors of the world. Tugboat Stories is a suite of linked stories based on the author’s career as a seaman and owner/operator of tugboats working in New York Harbor from 1971 to 1998. The work comprises both a portrayal of the socially complex and deeply traditional world of the harbor community and the narrator’s progress within that world from rank beginner to seasoned professional.Within the context of this loose narrative trajectory the author provides a first-hand experience of a unique life − physically demanding, sometimes comic, sometimes crude, often lonely, and, at its core, spiritually compelling. At the time the author entered the New York harbor scene, the tugboat business was still under the sway of 19th century values and practice. Binding agreements were forged by word of mouth. Skill was assessed within the community at large rather than by governmental process, and individuality − to the point of eccentricity – was easily accepted so long as the over-arching criteria of honesty and skill were met. The harbor was still a place where independence found equal place with self discipline and excellence. In a deeper context still, the Harbor and its people at that time shared an ancestry with the very roots of American literature. The Lower Manhattan shoreline where the narrator’s boat is tied is the same as that trod by Ishmael in the opening paragraphs of Moby Dick, the river in front is the same as in Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”. The looming Brooklyn Bridge and the harbor dawn are the same as beheld by Hart Crane. The narrator walks in the footprints of the creators of “On the Waterfront” and learns many of the same skills and disciplines as did Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi. George Matteson lives in New York City and on the coast of Maine with his wife, artist Adele Ursone. He worked in and around NY Harbor and the Northeastern US coast and inland waterways from 1971 to 1999, including running his own tugboat, the Spuyten Duyvil, for 13 years. For some of those years, he not only worked, but also lived on the water.He is the author of Tugboats of New York: An Illustrated History, New York University Press, 2005 and Draggermen: Fishing on George’s Bank, Scholastic/Four Winds Press, 1979, and the co-author of The Christmas Tugboat, a children’s book, Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin, 2012. He is also an accomplished poet, with an anthology, That Miraculous Land &amp; Other Poems, East River Press, 1982. He curated an exhibition, As Tugs Go By: A History of the Towing Industry in New York Harbor, at the John Noble Maritime Collection, Sailors’ Snug Harbor, in Staten Island, New York in March, 2008

Tugboat Stories

Engineering & Transportation

Matteson, George

Transportation

"Paddy Brosnan has a gift for making mindfulness and the philosophy behind it immediately understandable in everyday life." Padraig O'Morain From author and mindfulness expert, Paddy Brosnan (This Works, Hay House, 2018) comes Treasury of Mindfulness. A collection of simple yet precious resources which will enhance your life and add to the quality of your everyday experiences. This book is filled with useful and engaging resources and tips and is ideal for those new to mindfulness and those who have been practising for some time. Open this treasure chest to find whatever you might need at a given moment - and in the process, discover lots of other unexpected, delightful and useful ideas for living mindfully. Treasury of Mindfulness opens with a couple of short, chapters outlining in simple terms the key principles of mindfulness and how to develop the practice in everyday life. Then there is the Treasury itself, where the reader can rummage around to find exactly what they are looking for, or, even better, in which they can randomly open a page whenever the mood takes them and trust that whatever they've landed on is something they will find helpful and thought-provoking. Each entry in the Treasury features one of four different kinds of mindfulness tools; -A Mindful Meditation - the formal practice by which we can develop our ability to live mindfully. -Everyday Mindfulness - simple ways in which to incorporate mindfulness into the things we do every day. -Mindful Ideas - these are all things that the author has found to be really beneficial to his practice, and which have helped him live more mindfully. They are fun and will add a different, more relaxed quality to your life if you do them regularly. -One-Minute Mindfulness - in times of stress, anxiety, panic or frustration, we are not always in a position to sit quietly and meditate for even 5 or 10 minutes. There are lots of mindful techniques to help us in moments of turmoil and some of the most useful of these are featured in the One-Minute Mindfulness exercises. As well as the above, scattered liberally throughout the Treasury are a number of beautiful quotes from inspirational people, past and present - and some from the author of this book too. A great way to use these would be to think of them as your 'thought for the day', to be mulled over for a while before moving on. Also included is a separate chapter focusing on mindfulness for kids which features some really fun mindful activities especially for children. Paddy Brosnan is a mindfulness teacher and inspirational speaker. A committed Buddhist, he has practiced mindfulness for nearly two decades and has taught tens of thousands how to do the same through his workshops, retreats and books. www.paddybrosnan.com

Treasury of Mindfulness: How to Rest in the Quiet Heart of Calm

Brosnan, Paddy

Religion & Spirituality

Too Close

Curtis, Gayle

The Upside of Down

Health, Fitness & Dieting

West, Tara

Mental Health

‘The bed is hard. I'm utterly exhausted but never has sleep seemed so far away. I lie there, terrified. How can I find a way back to any sort of life from this? 
Soon a man in a blue uniform comes into the room. Softly he walks to the side of the bed and shines a torch into my eyes. At first, I'm confused, but then the awful realisation hits me – he's checking to make sure I'm still alive. I am on suicide watch.’\nIn May 2013, 38-year-old journalist Jonny McCambridge seems to have the perfect life – a beautiful wife and a newborn son, a top job in local media and a bright future in the newspaper industry. But just four months later, in the early hours of a September morning, he finds himself in the acute ward of a Northern Ireland psychiatric hospital. It’s a voluntary admission – but only because a doctor insisted that the alternative was to have him forcibly sectioned.\nHow has his life so dramatically fallen apart? And how indeed will he be able to ‘find a way back . . . from this’?\nThis is Jonny’s heartfelt, viscerally honest account of his attempt to overcome the mental health demons which tormented him for decades and brought him dangerously close to the conclusion that life simply wasn’t worth living anymore. He embarks on a long and often bumpy road to recovery which sees him returning to work too soon and having to abandon his media career, then adjusting to a new life as a ‘stay-at-home’ dad, becoming the world’s least likely blogger and ultimately finding meaning and purpose in his role as a full-time father.\nAll the while, he struggles to better navigate the uncharted territory of his own mind and make sense of his emotions, shut down decades earlier by the expectations of a repressed society where boys don’t cry and men are supposed to be strong and silent.\nBy turns poignant, heartbreakingly sad and side-achingly funny, this is a book which will speak to anyone who struggles to articulate their own emotions or to make sense of all that life throws at them, as well as those who at times feel crushed by the challenges of new parenthood.\nJonny McCambridge was born in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1974. After completing a degree in history and politics at Queen’s University, he worked in the NI media industry for almost two decades, holding a number of senior editorial positions, including Deputy Editor at the Belfast Telegraph. In 2016, Jonny gave up daily newspaper journalism to concentrate on looking after his son. In 2017 he launched the popular blog, What’s a Daddy For? In 2020, he was appointed News Editor of the News Letter.\nJonny currently lives in Hillsborough with his wife, Debs, also a journalist, and his seven-year-old son, James.\nPraise for Afraid of the Dark\n‘Packed with humour, wisdom and pathos, this is a compellingly personal memoir by one of Northern Ireland's finest writers.' 
br>Sam McBride, News Letter Political Editor and author of Burned 
‘Written by a gifted and courageous writer, this is a book every home should have.’\nFrank Mitchell, broadcaster and journalist\n‘…this book will cement Jonny McCambridge’s second career — not just as a truth-telling journalist, but as an author of the highest ability, integrity, penmanship and — I am certain — literary success.’\nPeter Cardwell, former UK government adviser, author of ‘The Secret Life of Special Advisers’ and mental health patient\n'Jonny McCambridge takes on his inner and outer demons with a cracking combination of grace, good humour, compassion, courage, love, self-deprecation and searing honesty. And brilliant writing. This is a wonderfully uplifting book.’\nWriter and commentator Alex Kane 
Afraid of the Dark is one of the rawest, most poignant accounts I have ever read…\nGareth O’Callaghan, Writer and Broadcaster

Afraid of the Dark: A Memoir of Mental Health and Fatherhood

McCambridge, Jonny

'...knowing where the lies are is the greatest knowledge...'A murder at an Irish hillside cottage. A mother shot by her mentally ill daughter, Mim. The girl's stepfather, Denis, the only witness.Mim starts talking fast. Her non-stop words are imagined random social media exchanges. Locked in a psychiatric unit, only Mim can reveal what her mother saw in her last moment alive.Denis, struggling to make sense of his wife's murder, is compelled to find out. On visits to Mim, he battles to break through her useless white noise by asking a single question over and over - Did She See You? When a social media star seeks an introduction to Mim, Denis will not assist. But when a secret meeting is secured, the repeated question takes on chilling new meaning...Did She See You? tells of a relentless search for answers along a blurred border between fantasy and reality. It is a story of long lies, concealed truths and the mighty persistence of heartbreak.Jason Johnson is the co-author of Slave and the author of four novels: Aloysius Tempo, Sinker, Alina and Woundlicker. He lives in N. Ireland.

Did She See You?

Johnson, Jason

Genre Fiction

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