The Far Side of the Lough by Polly Devlin (O'Brien, £5.99)

There's only one problem with this collection of wonderful stories - it is too short

There's only one problem with this collection of wonderful stories - it is too short. As features editor of Vogue, Polly Devlin interviewed the major personalities of the 1960s, including John Lennon and Andy Warhol, yet she has never forgotten her roots in Co Tyrone. The stories are recounted by a little girl, fascinated by the reminiscences of her nanny about her family in Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland. Both adults and children will love the magical, yet unsentimental (and often brutal) tales of rural life based on Devlin's own childhood - about an Ireland where emigrants hammered coins into a wishing tree, believing they would come back to where they left, or where a child's biggest excitement was receiving a doll in a parcel from America. A classic.