A sneak preview of next Saturday’s books pages in The Irish Times

Poetry has a strong showing on Saturday, with Róisín Ní Ghairbhí reviewing the Selected Poems of Seán Ó Ríordáin, and the poet's diaries. The former Irish Times columnist is a major, if neglected, Irish writer, she argues, who, like Leonard Cohen and Michael Hartnett, "treads a Lorca-esque path between surrealism and folklore".

Bernard O'Donoghue finds much to praise in Peter Fallon's new work, Strong, My Love. "Seamus Heaney said that Fallon's fundamental concerns were 'care, company and community'; in this book to these may be added compassion and fellow-feeling – with people, animals and the natural world."

Poetry Ireland director Maureen Kennelly waxes lyrical on the theme of authors who double-job as poets, and former US poet laureate Billy Collins contributes an original poem.

On the fiction front, Eileen Battersby enjoys Amnesia, the new work by Peter Carey, while Sarah Gilmartin admires Academy Street by Mary Costello, which was shortlisted for the Book of the Year award on the same day it was published last week. Anna Carey finds much to like in Marian Keyes's new novel, The Woman Who Stole My Life; and George O'Brien praises Julia Kelly's The Playground. Declan Burke's crime reviews column rounds up a couple of usual suspects, including new works by Michael Connelly and Val McDermid.

In non-fiction, Molly McCloskey reviews Not My Father's Son: A Family Memoir by the actor Alan Cumming, and Rod Stoneman reports back on Yellow Peril by Christopher Frayling, a study of Fu Manchu and the rise of Chinaphobia.