Review of The GAA & Revolution in Ireland 1913-1923 Edited by Gearoid O Tuathaigh

**** A very good read, which is hard to put down

                       

The ten-year period between 1913 and 1923 was a tumultuous one and a period in Irish history, which was fraught with tension and rife with change. This book, edited by Gearoid O Tuathaigh gives a snapshot of those times and what they entailed for the people of Ireland at the time.

This book would appeal to both history buffs and GAA heads alike, as it brings together a riveting collection of essays by leading writers in the fields of modern history and the history of sports.

Gearoid is Emeritus Professor in History at NUIG, is the former President of NUIG and is currently a member of the Council of State.

The book is unique and interesting, in that it examines the link between the world of conflict and war and the realm of sports.

It looks at how the GAA, after 1916, began to align the organisation more closely with the new emerging nation and the early reporting of GAA matches and events also give an insight into the early days of sports media and coverage of sporting events in our national news.

Women’s sports and camogie also gets a look in, as the global history of women’s sports is examined and dissected.

As well as pictures, some of which have never been published or seen before, there are also wonderful reproductions of artefacts and mementos, such as receipts, invoices, team sheets, All-Ireland teams and letters.

To bring the political world together with the sporting one, there is one picture which causes the two worlds to collide and shows how much they both influenced each other – a picture of Eamon de Valera throwing in the ball to start the 6 April 1919 Gaelic football match between Wexford and Tipperary in Croke Park, in aid of the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependant's Fund. 

Contributors include the editor Gearoid O Tuathaigh, Paul Rouse, Paraic Duffy, Cormac Moore, James McConnell, Ross O’Carroll, Donal McAnallen, Richard McElligott, Mike Cronin, Mark Reynolds, Eoghan Corry, Paul Darby, Sean Moran and Diarmaid Ferriter.

This book is €29.99 and is available online and from all good book stores.

A quick guide to Quinn’s Quandries star ratings;

***** A book so good, you don’t just read it, it takes over your life and you tell everyone you meet to read it immediately.

**** A very good book, which is hard to put down.

*** A decent read, but nothing to get too excited about.

** It would help you to pass away a few hours.

* Wouldn’t bother reading all of it.

Book Review of Daughter by Jane Shemilt

 
**** A very good book, which is hard to put down.

 

I am a recent convert to thrillers and still wouldn’t be a huge fan, so this book was a bit of a gamble.

I’ve always been a big reader and would have read believable fiction when I was younger and this graduated up to light chick lit when I was in college, because a lot of my college reading for New Media & English was fairly heavy going and now I’m really into thought provoking and involved fiction, but will also read non-fiction, fantasy (to an extent) and now crime thrillers, apparently.

I have a deep disdain for the term page turner in reviews, so I won’t be using that here, because I believe that to be the most fundamental of elements to any book – even if it’s complete crap, you can still literally turn the pages.

This book will haunt people and particularly parents, as it makes you question your very own moral compass and the core of your being, as you start to unwittingly question every move you’ve ever made with your child, every time they’ve said they are at a friend’s and every time you’ve left an argument hang in the air to fester and morph into something uglier with the passage of time.

The author develops an entire story around the ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’ and it is truly terrifying.

The story begins as every good story does, with the mundane and the ordinary and then it skips between the night of Naomi’s disappearance and one year later in the present – weaving an unsettling tale of intrigue, loss, desperation and the unyielding will of a parent to never give up on their child.

“They have a picture. It’ll help. But it doesn’t show the way her hair shines so brightly it looks like sheets of gold. She smells very faintly of lemons. She bites her nails. She never cries. She loves Autumn, I wanted to tell them. She collects leaves, like a child does. She is just a child.” If this sentence drew you in, this is just a flavour of what is contained within the story.

After a year, Naomi is still missing and the Malcolm family has been torn apart, but will the truth bring them closer together and reunite them all or will it drive a further wedge between them?

There are a lot of unanswered questions, but in a good way and the book brings up a lot of family and personal dilemma situations and it would make a great choice for a book club, as the potential for discussion and debate is almost endless.

 

This book is available from Jim Hyland’s General and Educational bookshop on 22 Lower Cork Street, Mitchelstown, Co. Cork for €8.99. For more information or to avail of a special discount in association with this blog, please call in store, ring 022 24528, email hylandsbooks@gmail.com and quote Quinn’s Quandries when purchasing. Happy frantic page turning and tea drinking (wine if it’s the evening or it’s a chilly Winter’s day).

A quick guide to Quinn’s Quandries star ratings;

***** A book so good, you don’t just read it, it takes over your life and you tell everyone you meet to read it immediately.

**** A very good book, which is hard to put down.

*** A decent read, but nothing to get too excited about.

** It would help you to pass away a few hours.

* Wouldn’t bother reading all of it.

 

Book Review - 'Leaving Time' by Jodi Picoult *****

***** - This book will consume every waking moment if you let it, you'll get so engrossed that you will start to forget that there is life outside the story contained within its pages. 

I have been a fan of Jodi Picoult’s writings for a number of years, so much so that my book shelf boasts an entire section dedicated to her books.

This latest book, which was released in November of 2014 has so far trumped them all and that is no mean feat when you are following in the footsteps of stories like ‘My Sister’s Keeper’, ‘Lone Wolf’ and ‘Plain Truth’.

True to Picoult’s style, the story is so well researched that you feel as if you are in the story, rather than just reading someone else’s version of it.

‘Leaving Time’ is a truly gripping story about love, loss and the power of both of those feelings.

Jenna Metcalf was just a child when her mother disappeared and while her disappearance has always been shrouded in mystery, Jenna has never given up on finding her mother.

Her parents were both academics who studied elephants and when they set up a sanctuary for elephants who had been separated from their herds or mistreated at zoos or circuses, they created the world that their daughter Jenna would come to think of as home.

We follow Jenna as she enlists the help of a psychic and former detective and in her desperation to find a link to her long lost mother who left her life more than a decade ago, she discovers things about herself that she never knew.

Throughout the book, we hear Jenna’s story and through Picoult’s unique narrative style, a story of all of the other characters is also weaved and by the end, you are furiously turning the pages to see what happens next, so that the next piece of thread can be unravelled to reveal another part of the story that was previously hidden.

Like many of Picoult’s books, this one has plot twists and turns that you wouldn’t expect and the story that you set out to read turns into something completely different by the time you read the last sentence on the final page.

This is a story, like I said, of love and loss, but it is also one of resilience, determination and strength. 

Star Ratings: 
* Wouldn't bother reading all of it.

** It will help you to pass away a few hours.

*** A decent read, but nothing to get too excited about.

**** A very good book, which is hard to put down. 

***** A book so good that you don't just read it, it takes over your life and you tell everyone you meet to read it immediately. 

Available from Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Leaving-Time-Jodi-Picoult/dp/1444778145/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1430920770&sr=8-1&keywords=jodi+picoult+leaving+time

From Easons; http://www.easons.com/p-3139666-leaving-time.aspx?gclid=CIrGue6lrcUCFaJe2wodEG8Adg