The Hare’s Corner, Making Space for Nature
By Jane Clarke and Catherine Cleary, illustrated by Jane Carkill
New Island, €22.95
Catherine Cleary meets Gráinne Vaughan near her home in east Clare where Vaughan, steward of Glendree Nature Corridors project, “greets ... a plum tree in full blossom with ... heartfelt delight”. Thus is the giddy, affectionate tone of The Hare’s Corner. In a series of essays, poems, photography and illustrations, the uplifting work of the Burrenbeo Trust and the grassroots movements reviving biodiversity across the island are celebrated. “These are not only ecological interventions” Mary Robinson aptly writes in a foreword to the book, “they are acts of love and intergenerational responsibility.” Hope abounds from this book like whirligigs dancing on a pond surface. Nature, we are soothed, is patiently waiting to heal, if only we let her. A thorough delight! Brigid O’Dea
Grand Rapids
By Natasha Stagg
Semiotext(e), €20
In her first work of fiction since 2016’s Surveys, New York-based art writer Natasha Stagg returns with a wryly insightful novel about the ways we present our public selves for consumption. Grand Rapids is the protagonist Tess’s adolescent hometown in Michigan, a place symbolised by the Calder sculpture installed along its central Grand River. Stagg’s narrative weaves between past and present, as Tess recalls her turbulent and irreverent high-school days from the vantage point of her twenties, reconstructing her coming-of-age as a story to tell potential lovers. Meditating on what it means to make a story of our lives, and the slippery nature of narrative itself, Grand Rapids is a compelling, original dissection of anxieties about presenting ourselves in an era when everyone’s watching. Maija Makela
The Marionette and the Maestro
By Tanya Farrelly
Arlen House, €15
The Marionette and the Maestro is a witty, darkly enchanting collection in which Tanya Farrelly revives the old romantic trades of Europe – clockmakers, cobblers, puppeteers – and gives them an unsettling twist. The pleasure is partly the travel: Farrelly evokes Palermo, Paris, Vienna, Prague and Bruges with such vivid detail that moving through the stories feels like a brisk, atmospheric tour of the continent. These tales unfold with the logic of fairy tales: enchanted objects, strange bargains, and sudden transformations shaping the lives of their characters. Farrelly’s imagination is abundant and unrestrained; each tale feels meticulously crafted yet elastic. The stories tap into the magic that made reading as a child feel so enchanting. Ruby Eastwood
