Peter CostelloSome of our regular reviewers share with readers their choices among the books published this year, which most impressed them during their reading and reviewing through the course of 2015. The prices quoted are the publishers’ recommended prices, in either euros or pounds, and they may vary from outlet to outlet.
FELIX M. LARKIN
John Bruton’s collection of essays, Faith in Politics (Currach Press, €19.99), is fascinating reading for those of us with an interest in history and politics, and specifically in how history impacts on politics. He expresses concern about what he sees as the “higher level of scepticism about politicians nowadays”, but his “faith in democratic, constitutional politics” is absolute – hence the title of his book.
His essays range over politics, economics, history and religion. The last category includes a paper he gave to the 2012 Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, in which he reflects on the “added value” that Christians can bring to politics.
He concludes by saying that “no Christian, and Catholics in particular, should be afraid to bring their beliefs into the public square”. This is today an unfashionable idea, but Bruton does not shrink from writing and speaking against the grain of the prevailing consensus.
Also unfashionable now is his defence of the constitutional nationalist tradition in Irish history. John Redmond is his great hero. In a seminal address in the Royal Irish Academy in 2014, reproduced here, he argues that “the 1916 Rising was a mistake” and left us with a baleful legacy of political violence.
Our imminent commemoration of the centenary of 1916, he fears, runs the risk of “saying that killing and dying is something that will be remembered by future generations, but patient peaceful achievements will be quietly forgotten”. That is a warning we would do well to heed.
CHRISTOPHER MORIARTY
My choice has to be Alister McGrath’s Inventing the Universe: why we can’t stop talking about science, faith and God (Hodder and Stoughton, £20.00).
This is more than a very powerful support book for Christians and other believers who are irritated, perplexed or feel threatened by the enthusiasm and supposed logic of atheistic ‘rationalists’. The author traces his own development from an early career as an unbelieving biochemist to his profession of Christian philosopher. He displays his erudition with exceptional skill as a compelling writer, making for a happy combination of delightful reading and a profound message.
And I also enjoyed another important book, David Dickson’s Dublin: The Making of a Capital City (Profile Books, €37.99). A must for discerning Dubs, David Dickson has written a masterpiece to join the handful of distinguished books on the history of Dublin’s fair city. In a delightful combination of scholarship and highly readable detail the author presents the tale of buildings and people for more than a thousand years, from the days of the Viking port to the 21st Century.
PETER HEGARTY
My choice is The New Threat from Islamic Militancy, by Jason Burke (Bodley Head, £16.99): a thorough, wide-ranging work in which Burke shows how wealthy Sunni extremists have largely sustained DAESH (known in the West as ISIS) until now.
He argues that the caliphate faces a difficult future. An entity that must expand to survive is instead shrinking: ‘spectaculars’, such as the recent massacre in Paris, obscure the fact that DAESH is losing territory to the Kurds, who are rolling back an army that lacks expertise in the use of modern weaponry.
A significant reverse, such as the fall of a stronghold, or the assassination of its charismatic ‘caliph’, al Baghdadi, could hasten the end of DAESH.
MARY KENNY
I much admired Atul Gawande’s impressive book about the western world’s attitudes to illness and carers for the elderly in Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End (Profile, £8.99). He writes with knowledge, but also from personal experience as a surgeon, about the way in which western culture has prioritised safety over genuine care, and homes for the elderly and infirm are more like over-comfortable prisons than places for enrichment in our last years.
In a world of atrocious political violence now often blamed on religion, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ book Not in God’s Name (Hodder & Stoughton, £20.00) is a knowledgeable examination of Biblical texts which link the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. He shows how these sources have often been misinterpreted, and wilfully misused: and concludes that to invoke violence in the name of God is truly a betrayal of faith.
For sheer cheerfulness, I enjoyed Juanita Browne’s Put the Kettle On: The Irish Love Affair with Tea (Collins Press, €14.99), being a collection of reflections from the world’s champion tea-lovers – the Irish.
JOHN F. DEANE
God in Winter, poems by Pádraig J. Daly (Dedalus Press, €11.50). Censorship? Indeed, but covert. The secular media turn two blind eyes to literature that mentions God.
So this fine collection of poems by parish priest and poet Pádraig J. Daly has received no attention. In this bleak and frightening time, Daly’s poems affirm hope, “hope without optimism”, as Terry Eagleton writes.
So, a hope that does not ignore our present reality, in poems that focus on the actuality of incarnation, where God is divined in everyday living. These are poems that eschew mere devotion, but whose breathing rhythms and beautifully-modulated music, touch the deepest and most valuable heart-strings.
PETER COSTELLO
Quite one of the most astonishing books of the year was Seamus Cashman’s long poem about creation and creativity, The Sistine Gaze: “I too begin with scaffolding” (Salmon Poetry, €12.00). At a time when the long poem seems to have died, Seamus Cashman has achieved in his new work a wonderful resuscitation.
A long poem is not a merely lyric line written long. It is a thing unto itself, demanding new responses, new insights from both the poet and the reader. Meditating on the images of the Sistine Chapel (the subtitle is a quotation from the artist Michelangelo), which deals with creation in a cosmic sense, is a daunting theme.
It can be said that Cashman carries this task to a wonderful conclusion. Just as the painting of the ceiling was the artist’s most demanding work, so too this made demands on Cashman’s skills. Perhaps the most important poetry publication of 2015, The Sistine Gaze will be is a landmark in Irish literature.
JOE CARROLL
In The Age of Nothing (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £30.00), Peter Watson, a leading historian of ideas and culture, has written a challenging book for non-atheists. The subtitle is “How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God”.
He assesses the efforts made by philosophers, artists, writers, playwrights, poets, musicians and even some theologians to fill the gap left in the Western intellectual tradition since Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous declaration in 1882 that “God is dead”. Watson points out that many who quote this assertion omit that he added that “we have killed him”.
Watson’s 600-page sweep over the cultural achievements of the past 130 years is an education in itself. For believers in God, they are forced constantly to confront the ways the intellectuals and artists over that period have tried to replace the void left by the death of God claim, a claim that many would say was confirmed by Stalin’s terror and Hitler’s Holocaust.
This led to the rise of a new theological science called “Theonatology wherein God’s mortal illness or demise serves as the starting point for a radically secular approach to the modern world”.
The Irish philosopher Richard Kearney’s book, Anatheism (Columbia University Press, $27.00) – meaning “the return to God” – figures in Watson’s summing up. He is not too impressed with the “opacity” of Kearney’s prose and “lock-jaw syntax”. But he lists Kearney as among those for whom “traditional ideas of God can no longer be entertained” after the disasters of the 20th Century. (Watson’s book appeared in the US under the title The Age of Atheists.)
ANTHONY REDMOND
When Silence Speaks: The Spiritual Way of the Carthusian Order by Tim Peeters (Darton, Longman & Todd, €12.99) is a most extraordinary and riveting book which describes the solitude, silence and deep spirituality of the Carthusian monks and their daily routines of manual labour and Lectio Divina.
It could be said that the life of the monk is a complete contradiction to the ways of the world. It is a hard life of asceticism and continuous concentration on God.
The Carthusian monks sing the liturgy in Gregorian chant and most of their time is spent in isolation in their cells in prayer and spiritual reading. Cardinal Danneels says: “Monks are like candles: they burn for God.” This is a most informative and fascinating book.
There is a delightful comment which I love by the monk, Dom Jacques Dupont. He says: “Indeed, we waste our lives for Jesus because we love him. But whoever has fallen in love knows that love is capable of the greatest foolishness.” This book is a joy from beginning to end.
J. ANTHONY GAUGHAN
The two books I particularly enjoyed reading during the year are life-stories which recorded very different slices of Irish life. Seán Ó Sé, best-known for his rendition of An Poc ar Buile, describes his life as a teacher and leading traditional singer in An Poc ar Buile: the life and times of Seán Ó Sé by Seán Ó Sé with Patricia Ahern. In so doing he provides a splendid overview of the Irish traditional song, music and dance scene across the last 50 years.
For Seán the great talisman of that scene was Seán Ó Riada and he expresses his pleasure that Ó Riada’s influence and that of his Ceoltóirí Chualann continues.
There is more than a flavour of Daniel Corkery’s Hidden Ireland in Seán’s world as he recalls it and his narrative is affirming, positive and upbeat, indicating that, apart from his talent as a singer, he was also an excellent teacher.
Terry Golway in his biography of John Devoy, Irish Rebel: John Devoy and America’s fight for Ireland’s freedom, charts a life-time of patriotic endeavour. Devoy was involved in every ‘heave’ in the long struggle for Irish independence.
Sworn into the IRB in 1861, he was imprisoned for his Fenian activities from 1866 to 1871. Emigrating to the US he became the most influential figure in Clan na Gael, the public face of the IRB.
He organised the spectacular escape of Fenians from Australia in 1876; was a key-figure in the preparations for the failed Easter Rising in 1916; and ensured that Clan na Gael provided significant financial and logistical support to the insurgents during the war of independence.
On his only visit to his homeland in 1924 he was feted by the Irish Free State government, which four years later arranged his State funeral. Apart from their specific interest, these two life-stories are a vivid illustration of the stark differences between pre-and post-independent Ireland.
JOHN WYSE JACKSON
There is no contest for my book of the year 2015: Walking-Class Heroes? Dublin’s Remarkable Street-Personalities 1955-2015, by Rory Campbell (Killiney Hill Press, €30.00hb).
This unique and beautiful album contains portraits in words, ink and, surprisingly, impeccable crayon, of many of the well-known or half-familiar ‘characters’ who have walked, shuffled or danced through the streets of the nation’s capital over the last six decades.
Campbell’s faux-naïve artistry captures perfectly these often lonely figures, many of them in the grip of apparently inexplicable obsessions, from Bang-Bang to the blind accordionist on O’Connell Bridge.
The book is not very widely distributed, but at my shop, Zozimus Bookshop (086-1233137), there will always be signed copies in stock – as long as the short print run lasts! A collector’s item in the making.