Next Saturday's highlight in books is without doubt a double-page spread of 24 well-known writers and critics naming their favourite books of 2014. Anna Carey has surpassed herself this year with the quality of her recruits: Marian Keyes; Neel Mukherjee; David Mitchell; John Banville; Colm Tóibín; Joseph O'Connor; Karen Jay Fowler; Nina Stibbe; Eavan Boland; Roy Foster; Rory O'Neill; Sara Baume; Kate Mosse; John Kelly; Helen MacDonald; Bert Wright; Louise O'Neill; Sinead Gleeson; Sinead Desmond; Tana French; Liz Nugent; Lia Mills; Lisa Coen; and Tara Flynn.

But if we're giving out plaudits, how about this for an intro from Sarah Gilmartin's review of Lilliput's reissued Seventies classic, Father Comes First by Rosita Sweetman? "If you could travel back in time to the seventies, Ireland would not be high on the destination list. America had disco, Britain had the Sex Pistols, and Ireland had religion and rain."

John McAuliffe reviews After the Titanic: A life of Derek Mahon by Stephen Enniss.

Bert Wright argues that Amazon is great for cheapskates, not for culture.

Eileen Battersby reviews Portrait of a Man by Georges Perec and says it is not just another "lost" first book: this one is special.

Declan Burke reviews the latest crime fiction, including new books by John Grisham, Kati Hiekkapelto, Frances Fyfield and Keigo Higashino.