David Fitzpatrick, professor of modern history at Trinity College Dublin, reviews Judging WT Cosgrave: the foundation of the Irish state and concludes Michael Laffan has done ample justice to Cosgrave's many achievements. Olivia O'Leary salutes the success of one of her successors as Irish Times sketchwriter in her review of The Best of Miriam Lord.

John Connolly addresses a double bill of scare stories, Revival, the latest from the master, Stephen King, and Horror Stories: Classic Tales from Hoffman to Hodgson, edited by Daryll Jones. Eileen Battersby finds much to admire in another scary Scandi tale, Hanne Orstavik's The Blue Room.

Sarah Gilmartin's New Fiction column looks at Gerard Lee's Forsaken, a look inside the mind of a disturbed child in a strange, cruel world. Declan Burke reports on Anthony Horowitz's Moriarty, another reworking of the Sherlock Holmes myth; and Robert Dunbar appraises the latest selection of books for children, including Oliver Jeffers's Once Upon An Alphabet.

Biographies of two titans of the theatre are tackled this week. Ian Thomson finds John Lahr's Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh has got to the truth of the man, while Joe Dowling admires his namesake Robert Dowling's Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts. Paddy Agnew salutes Roberto Saviano's Zero Zero Zero, an account of the struggle aganst narco-terrorism.

On a lighter note, Bert Wright looks at the perils and pleasures of the book-signing event.