‘Your Guide to Living and Loving the Irish Language’

This week there’s a mix of fiction, memoir, history and cúpla focail from a woman with more than 70,000 followers on Instagram.

Hotel Lux, Maurice J Casey, Footnote Press, €14.99

This is a book for history lovers, telling the story of May O’Callaghan from Wexford, who found herself in Moscow’s Hotel Lux at the height of Soviet communism in the 1920s. While being based in the Hotel Lux (which wasn’t anything like as luxurious as its name might suggest), she befriended an English and a German family, all united in the cause of communism, and significantly all living in the same hotel. Described by the author as ‘the most remarkable hotel in modern history’, the Lux housed many communist and socialist idealists, but Stalin’s purges would, of course, destroy all that. A fascinating peek at a little-known piece of history.

The Life Impossible, Matt Haig, Canongate, €12.99

The author of The Midnight Library and How to Stop Time has produced another winner in his latest novel. Grace Winters, a retired teacher, is bequeathed an old house in bad repair on the island of Ibiza and is to consequently find a different life and a very different perspective. Christina, the friend who left Grace the house, died by drowning, but the circumstances aren’t clear, leaving Grace feeling she must investigate further. Besides that, Grace is soon to be bestowed with something other than a house; supernatural powers! It may sound odd, but if you’re a fan of Haig, you’ll know how he can bend the narrative to convey the message, and that he does with supreme elegance.

A Cold Eye, Carlo Gébler, New Island, €19.95

Subtitled ‘Notes from a Shared Island 1989-2024’, in this book, which you might call a modern history book, Gébler takes a single diary entry from his personal journal, one day from every year since 1989 and relates what it has felt like to live in Northern Ireland through the Troubles and also in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement, through Brexit and beyond. It’s history through the prism of personal memoir and the writing sparkles. Photographs by David Barker are sprinkled generously throughout. It’s a ‘dipper’, where you can slip in and out, taking just single days at a time. It also bears witness to a profoundly changed Ireland, north and south.

Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner, Vintage €17.99

This book, set in the world of eco-terrorism, was on the Booker Prize shortlist for 2024. A female counter-terrorist agent is given the alias Sadie Smith and dispatched to a farming co-op, Le Moulin, in France. This is not an ordinary agricultural co-op and the Moulinards are suspected of all sorts of industrial sabotage, violence and vandalism. The group leader, Pascal Balmy, is Rachel’s prime suspect and she will have to gain his trust to bring him down. But then there’s the man Pascal takes orders from, recluse Bruno Lacombe, who lives alone underground – literally underground – in a cave. It’s high-octane stuff and Kushner’s style is really something to behold.

Frankie, Graham Norton, Coronet, €15.99

This is another lovely novel from the multi-talented Norton, and tells the tale of Frankie, an elderly Irish woman living in London, who’s taken a fall and needs a carer. Enter young Damien who, like Frankie, is originally from West Cork. The pair form a firm friendship and over time, Frankie relates her life story to Damien, from leaving Cork for London in the 1950s to going on to New York in the 1960s. Frankie was not a woman for the spotlight, although she has lived in the shadow of other people’s spotlights. To say more would be to spoil, but Norton had his work cut out for this story. There’s considerable research, worn lightly throughout, on the various changing decades in which Frankie has lived. How does a woman with such an extraordinary life end up alone in a rundown flat in London? A story full of heart and warmth.

The Women Behind the Door, Roddy Doyle, Vintage, €16.99

Doyle’s third novel about Paula Spencer casts a cold eye on Covid restrictions, lest we forget. Paula Spencer, who originally appeared in The Woman who Walked into Doors, a novel about domestic violence and alcoholism, is 66 now. She lives alone and is happy to remain on her own but she has a man in her life, and they enjoy each other’s company. He’s ‘posh’ and lives in Howth and although they make a good couple, Paula is aware of the class difference. This difference is, in fact, much more keenly felt by Paula than by boyfriend Joe. Paula’s married daughter Nicola lands on her doorstep. She’s at a crisis in her marriage and needs to stay with her mother. But at first, she won’t tell Paula what’s wrong. The story involves both women looking back at the brutal years when husband Charlo was there, terrorising his own family, not just his wife. It’s painful but also funny and Doyle, characteristically, can reveal volumes behind just a few lines of seeming banter.

Gaeilge i mo Chroí, Molly Nic Céile, Hachette, €17.99

Subtitled ‘Your Guide to Living and Loving the Irish Language’, this book is by an influencer with lots of followers who have a grá for the Irish language. The book is directed at those of us who had a tricky relationship with the language in school. The author figures she can fix that, and so she offers various suggestions for bringing Irish into our everyday lives. She does it by exploring the language through the use of proverbs, stories and her trademark ‘If Irish were English’ approach. Her methods have proven to be popular online and this book can get you started on Irish even if you’re not a big social media fan.

Footnotes

Want to visit a Christmas market with a difference? The Doggy Christmas Market and Santa Paws is for dawgs and their humans. It takes place on December 16, 12-5pm in Dublin’s Three Locks Square. Admission for the humans is free, but you need a ticket for your dog! Tickets are being sold through Eventbrite, and this sounds like it’s definitely worth a look.