Irish Potato Cookbook, by Eveleen Coyle; Ancient Irish Monuments, by Peter Harbison (Gill & Macmillan, £3.99 each)

These attractive little books are presumably aimed at the visitor market - others in the series include Louis Bell's Popular …

These attractive little books are presumably aimed at the visitor market - others in the series include Louis Bell's Popular Irish Poetry, Padraic O'Farrell's Ancient Irish Legends and Bill Meek's Irish Folk Songs - but there is much that's of interest to the native reader, too, in Peter Harbison's graceful glances at our story-telling stones, from passage graves to plantation castles. As for Eveleen Coyle's potato cookbook, it arrived in our house just at that tricky time of year when the cry goes up: "Oh, but we hate new potatoes and, with its simple, sensible and endlessly creative recipes which use every delicious thing you can think of from garlic, cheese and scallions to asparagus, lager and apples, single-handedly saved the spud from humiliation and oblivion.

Arminta Wallace

Arminta Wallace

Arminta Wallace is a former Irish Times journalist