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Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood
The coffee dictionary : an A-Z of coffee from growing and roasting to brewing and tasting
(London : Mitchell Beazley, 2017)
The title says it all about this book, as informative as it is entertaining, not to mention cutely illustrated. Borrow it and you can order with confidence in any of the coffee shops which are currently proliferating country-wide! The author has won the UK Barista Championship three times and has reached each final of the resulting World Championships.

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Malachy McCourt
Death need not be fatal
(New York : Center Street, 2017)
In this memoir the Irish-American celebrity and raconteur casts a sober, if sometimes twinkling eye on the tragedies that have shaped his life, casting some light on the death of his father and the story behind the iconic Angela Ashes, written by his late brother Frank McCourt. The author writes about what it feels like to grow old, gracefully or otherwise, and to be finally staring death in the face. In the words of the singer Judy Collins, 'a book to read, weep, laugh and sing over'.

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Adam Plowright
The French exception : Emmanuel Macron, the extraordinary rise and risk
(London : Icon Books, 2017)
As we in Ireland get used to our new and superconfident young Taoiseach, take a look at Emmanuel Macron, France's youngest leader since Napoleon. How did he come from nowhere to be leader of one of Europe's most powerful countries? Can he make the French feel better about themselves and about Europe? Can he maintain the initial shine of his presidency? What will his ascendancy mean for Brexit? As the subtitle implies, his position is precarious and already events are catching up with him. Keep yourself informed with Adam Plowright's excellent analysis.

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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Much more veg
(London : Bloomsbury, 2017)
Judging by the cover photograph of the author he is certainly thriving on his vegetables, and as for the photos of the food, they have a jewel-like intensity of colour which makes them actually glow on the page. On a more serious note vegetarianism is no longer the exception it once was - many restaurants have dedicated vegetarian menus along with the meaty options, and more or and more are opting to go for vegetarian dishes whether for ethical, environmental or health reasons - or just because they taste so good. Get started with the recipes here! The author is the founder of the River Cottage food and cookery school firm.

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Fergal Keane
Wounds : a memoir of love and war
(London : William Collins, 2017)
War correspondent Keane goes back to his Irish roots in this family memoir of his Kerry grandmother Hannah Purtill and her relations, who took up arms in the cause of Irish independence. It is also the story of their friend and neighbour, policeman Tobias O'Sullivan, who fought against them to uphold what he saw as the law of the land. Keane finds in this tragic episode the roots of his obsession with warfare, particularly civil war, and sheds light on how the violent deeds of one generation can reverberate down the years in small rural communities. Keane is the son of actor Eamonn Keane and nephew of the playwright and author John B. Keane. 

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Breandán Mac Suibhne
The end of outrage : post-famine adjustment in rural Ireland
(Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017)
Focused on events in Beagh, near Ardara in West Donegal, Mac Suibhne casts light on something that has often been overlooked in Famine studies - the necessary but sometimes uncomfortable compromises involved in getting a shattered society back on its feet again. It tells the story of a campaign by the Mollie Maguires, an agrarian secret society, against a local farmer and how some in the parish felt it necessary to inform on the Mollies to the authorities for the greater good of the community. The author is an academic at Centenary University, New Jersey, but was born in the Ardara district.

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Peggy Seeger
First time ever : a memoir
(London : Faber, 2017.) 
The title of Peggy Seeger's book makes reference to the song written for her by her husband, folk singer Ewan McColl, made famous by Roberta Flack - 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your face'. Daughter, singer, wife and mother of musicians, Peggy is a formidable musician, singer and songwriter in the folk idiom in her own right and shares much of the credit with her late husband for the folk revival of the 1960s. Now in her eighties, she continues to write and perform. This luminous memoir adds to her long list of achievements.

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Maggie O'Farrell
I am, I am, I am : seventeen brushes with death
(London : Tinder Press, 2017)
This memoir by the Coleraine-born novelist Maggie O'Farrell recounts, as the title says, her seventeen close encounters with death - a childhood illness, an almost-there air crash, a mis-managed labour, to mention but a few. Told in a series of tense, visceral snapshots, and with a novelist's eye for the significant detail, it is a book that will make you think about your own life - how precious it is, and how easily it could be lost. O'Farrell now lives in Edinburgh and has published seven novels.

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SPORTSFILE
Great moments in hurling
(Dublin : O'Brien Press, 2017)
A collection of photographs from eight decades of what many consider to be the fastest field sport in the world, celebrating the bravura performances and the moments of triumph and defeat in the history of a game which often resembles a battle more than a sport.

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Odd Arne Westad
The Cold War : a world history
(London : Allen Lane, 2017)
The blurb of this book is interesting in so far as it suggests that while we in Europe think of the second half of the twentieth century as a reprieve from the horrors of the first half, for most of the world outside Europe it was far worse, since all the civil wars which plagued the developing world in that period were no more than proxy conflicts for the United States and the Soviet Union, neither of whom were willing to cause too much havoc on their doorsteps but were happy tp play war games in far off places. Westad's book has a genuinely global range which gives a new perspective on the so-called Cold War - we think of the Cold War as grim summits of leaders in fur hats but Vietnam, Angola, Cuba and Korea were the Cold War too, and some of the repercussions of that era are still live and dangerous issues. 

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Mark Empey, Alan Ford and Miriam Moffitt, editors
The Church of Ireland : history, interpretation and identity
(Dublin : Four CourtsPress, 2017) 
Not so much a history of the Church of Ireland as a history of how the Church of Ireland has seen itself through the five hundred odd years of its existence, this compendium of essays brings together the work of a wide range of scholars and casts light on the apparent contradiction of how a minority church with roots outside Ireland appropriated to itself the unique heritage of Celtic Christianity.

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Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Everybody lies : what the internet can tell us about who we really are
(London : Bloomsbury, 2017)
People used to tell their secrets in the confessional or on the psychiatrist's couch, now they tell them online, often anonymously in chatrooms and social media. Still more often they reveal themselves involuntarily in the searches they make, the ads they look at, and the goods they order online.  The huge dataset created by our online personas often gives the lie to public perceptions of what we think is true about society and its values. The author is a contributor to the New York Times and a social researcher who uses big data to uncover hidden behaviours and attitudes.