non-fiction

I love the long, warm, bright summer evenings - but the long, chilly, dark winter evenings have their charms too, as long as I have something good to read. The girls in my house have stored up some special reads for those lazy days between Christmas and New Year. We've had to banish the chosen books from sight so we're not tempted to start reading immediately - there lies grave danger of no present buying, pudding making, tree trimming or other essential ingredients of Christmas. Read more »

Have you ever wished that someone would explain exactly how the banking crises happened without having to read the small print? Your wish is granted. This award winning documentary 'Inside Job' does exactly that. It is a well paced easily accessible account, through narration and extensive interviews with financiers, ex-government staff, academics and Chinese factory workers! It won an Academy award in for Best Documentary in 2010.

Let's start joining up the dots with a podcast available on Dublin City Public Library website. This talk by Simon Carswell explains how Anglo Irish bank "broke Ireland". Another very good example is Fintan O'Toole's book, 'Ship of Fools', which is a very readable account of the the property bubble in Ireland. While looking at reviews for this book I came across a very interesting website called Irish Left Review, if you have time click on the Irish Shadow Banking System. Read more »

A very important and fascinating book was published this year, "Where Were You? Dublin Youth Culture & Street Style 1950-2000" by Garry O'Neil and Niall McCormack.

The book is a compilation of photographs documenting social and fashion scenes in Dublin. What sets this book apart is that there are no staged fashion shoots or celebrities, just amazing photographs of everyday people wearing what was in style and ordinary people with extraordinary style.

It's a very intimate account of street culture in Dublin. This feeling of intimacy is directly linked to the way in which the material was sourced. Posters were hung up in cafes, bars and shops around the city asking people to send in photos, rather then all the material being collected in newspaper archives. Read more »

How often do you look up? The members of TICAS, The Irish Cloud Appreciation Society are very fond of doing so and at the end of this month (Fri-Sun 27th-29th July 2012)  are holding a festival in the north-west of Ireland.

Cloud watching, or cloud spotting is a relaxing and very enjoyable hobby. Enthusiasts will tell you there are ten basic categories of cloud, in a Latin 'Linnean' system devised by Luke Howard in 1802. Within these 'genea', or basic categories, however there are many different 'species' of cloud, and then within these there are further 'varieties'! Read more »

Like Pauline McLynn, the actress who plays Mrs. Doyle in the channel 4 series 'Father Ted', I was taught to knit by my mother. Knitting is a wonderful hobby, and and really fun and satisfying way to pass the time.

Recently however, the actress known so well for her mantra, 'Ah go on, go on, go on...' has now turned her hobby and her catchphrase into an online enterprise selling knitted tea cosies - the Go Ons. News article on Silicon Republic. Read more »

If like me you have been following Wimbledon over the past few weeks and will soon begin to have withdrawal symptoms why not pop by to your local library and learn some more about your favourite players. We have a range of books and also some DVDs which document the lives of some of the greatest players of all time, as well as some of the current tennis pros.

  Read more »