Orpen at War by Patricia O’Reilly (Liffey Press, €22.95)
William Orpen was appointed official British war artist and went to France in 1917 to capture a visual record of the conflict. Blending fact and fiction, Patricia O’Reilly skilfully combines Orpen’s French experiences with flashbacks to his Dublin childhood, art school, early loves, courtship of his wife and other aspects of his life, especially his philandering. Shocked at the conditions the ordinary soldiers had to endure, he sought to convey their experiences and celebrate their heroism, and came to despise the decisions of the authorities, secure behind their comfortable desks. The intriguing story of his paintings of French nurse Yvonne Aupicq, with whom he had an affair, could constitute a separate novel. Illustrated with many of his war works, the novel provides valuable insight into Orpen and his world. Brian Maye
Punks Listen, edited by Niall McGuirk and Michael Murphy (Hope Publications, €15)
“Well, everybody’s heard about the bird…”, but if you never have, buy these words. Punks Listen is a fundraiser from the Hope Collective for the Red Cross Ukraine appeal – they previously raised funds for Syria and NHS workers with other benefit books – and it’s a riot of a read. More than 200 contributors write about their favourite music, including: Eamonn McCann’s curly-lipped love of Elvis and the musical influence of US soldiers based in Derry; Henry Rollins appraising The Stooges’ Fun House; Roisin Dwyer riffing on Thin Lizzy. There’s plenty of punk, yes, but the selection is wide. Favourite artists like Miles, Billie, Nancy and Lee feature, and lots of others to look into. Notepad to hand, tablet ready – enjoy this big dipper of jukebox joy. NJ McGarrigle
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Landlines by Raynor Winn (Michael Joseph, £20)
Raynor Winn’s third book is an account of a 1,000-mile walk undertaken with her husband Moth in summer 2021. The symptoms of Moth’s neurodegenerative disorder are worsening. Recalling the previous improvement in his health thanks to distance walking, described in Winn’s best-seller The Salt Path, they decide to follow the Cape Wrath trail in northwest Scotland. Over the ensuing four months they end up scrambling up vertiginous gullies, stumbling drenched across bogs, cycling through cities and rambling along canals, all the way back to their home in Cornwall, southwest England. This engrossing story is filled with contrast: fear and hope, navigating freedom during Covid times, the beauty of nature and the damage we are doing to it. Above all else, however, there is love – for one another and for life. Sheila de Courcy
The Betrayed by Reine Arcache Melvin (Europa, £12.99)
The enormous upheaval that occurred in The Philippines when the repressive Marcos regime was removed from power and replaced by an administration led by Cory Aquino forms the framework for The Betrayed, a novel which cleverly and forcefully interrogates the moral ambiguities, compromises and self-deceptions that allowed those in positions of power to both change and continue. This is achieved by scrutinising the many dilemmas and deficiencies of one prominent family. By including both their personal desires and the public terrors experienced by members of this family, the author manages a very effective, restrained diagnosis of a society both singular and emblematic. A pity, then, that the novel ends – against the spirit of the novel – with a rushed chapter in which far too much resolution is attempted. Declan O’Driscoll
Cuba ‘62 by Richard Hollis & JS Tennant (Five Leaves, £11.99)
Richard Hollis spent a month in Cuba in 1962 and might well have been the only tourist to witness the covert build-up of Soviet forces there that summer. JS Tennant has been a regular traveller to Cuba for 20 years. Their book’s publication coincides with the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s a collage of texts and images, mainly based on Hollis’s contemporary diaries, letters and photos. The heady early days of the revolution, with its agrarian reform and literacy drive, are detailed and the main developments of the crisis, when the world stood on the brink of nuclear disaster, are vividly presented. The combination of images, contemporary writings and allusions to Cuban cinema elegiacally evoke a country and a world since greatly changed. Brian Maye
[ ‘Clear and present danger’: Ukraine and the Cuban Missile CrisisOpens in new window ]
Iron men ... in wooden boats by Alfredo Conde, translated by Manuel Lara (Ézaro, €15)
Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno believed there were three kinds of people – the dead, the living and the seafaring. Remembering this, Galician author Alfredo Conde writes that “being a sailor and an Irishman is a luxury: you get along more badly than well with the living, you get along quite well with your dead, and one way or another you get along with sailors”. Conde was so captivated by a group of Irish artists and musicians who completed a three-summer currach row from Ireland to Spain in 2016 that he has written a fictional account of their adventure. Translated by Manuel Lara, it reads with the rhythm of the sea in all its moods. Lorna Siggins
