Caitriona Crowe’s books of the year

MaddAddam is the last of Margaret Atwood's magnificent trilogy which began with Oryx and Crake and continued with The Year of the Flood. She has created an entirely convincing postapocalyptic world brought about by greed, cruelty and indifference to the catastrophic effects of our powerful technologies. The book is funny, challenging, engaged with fundamental questions, and beautifully written.

Telling It Our Way: Essays in Gender History (Arlen House), Mary Cullen's collected essays on gender and women's history, is an essential handbook for anyone interested in the history of one half of the human race, and how we interact with the other half.

A History of Ireland in 100 Objects (Royal Irish Academy) is Fintan O'Toole's wonderful selection of items from our national collections. He creates multiple points of entry into our mysterious, troubled, invigorating and always interesting past.

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