Books in brief: A history of plaster; Einstein for the general reader; influencers’ literary antecedents
Reviews of new works by Alain Corbin, Diana Kormos Buchwald and Michael D Gordin, and Nicola Wilson
By NJ McGarrigle
I’m always telling Sorcha to tone down the southside when we come out to Bray but she never listens
Sorcha’s friend Claire has opened yet another cafe but this time with a new gimmick: all the staff are ex-offenders
Collected Poems by Gerard Fanning: Elliptical, at times cryptic works built on mood and atmosphere
Early on, one feels the need to ask for a primer for some of Fanning’s enigmas but later he seems to relax into a more open, approachable clarity
By Declan Ryan
Zach Bryan in Dublin review: Gen Z’s Garth Brooks puts on a charming - and lengthy - show
Gen Z’s Garth Brooks - or Springsteen - puts on a charming show in this busy park venue
By Rebecca Daly
Five things we learned from the Lions’ loss to Argentina
Finlay Bealham did well but there are plenty of things for Andy Farrell’s team to work on before facing Australia
Annie McCarrick’s family in Long Island: ‘The gardaí did not investigate who we thought was guilty in the very beginning’
The mother, aunt and oldest friend of the American woman who went missing in Ireland in 1993 talk about how they would take comfort in having their long-standing belief validated
By Keith Duggan
Sinéad Gibney tells of how cousin Des Bishop ‘helped me to reflect on my own drinking’
‘My drinking had always been too heavy. I had my first drink at 14,’ says Social Democrats TD
By Harry McGee
Malachy Clerkin: I cannot wait for Lions tour, but why does rugby always feel this need for overblown nonsense?
Beauty of a Lions tour is its unique one-moment-in-time energy – sell that instead of all the tired battleworn guff
Is it time for the Social Democrats to end Eoin Hayes’s purgatory?
Before the Dáil even sat, the Social Democrats were down a TD over questions about his shareholding in a company with close ties to the IDF
If our Geraldine can thrive in Trump’s Washington, she might be a worthy winner of the race for the Áras
Plus: tragic fox news, a Rose county by any other name and AK-47 reloads and opens fire
By Miriam Lord
The Irish firms seen as safe from Trump’s planned ‘revenge tax’
Foreign companies operating in the US that are majority owned by US investors would not be affected by the special tax
By Joe Brennan
Nicky English: For Galway, Tipp are a more palatable task than Kilkenny
Tipperary are improving but vulnerable to pace, while John Kiely will want to see Limerick’s graph rising against Dublin
‘We’ve dropped the ball’: Ireland’s housing targets will be missed because the water, electricity and roads required can’t be delivered
Badly needed scaling up of house-building is threatened by transport and utilities projects stuck in the planning pipeline. What is to be done?
Why is Donald Trump messing with America’s most potent weapon?
United States president Donald Trump is undermining the world’s reserve currency: the US dollar
Venice Architecture Biennale 2025: Ireland presents an elegantly complex take on a richly simple idea
The Irish pavilion is a standout in an otherwise patchy 19th biennale
By Gemma Tipton
My Name is Emilia del Valle: A lighthearted and comical late-Victorian adventure
Unusually, Isabel Allende’s latest novel focuses not on the fantastical but on actual people, places and events
By Mei Chin
A Family Matter by Claire Lynch: Serviceable, highly readable but a bit preachy
The book centres on the author’s noble desire to illustrate the hideous treatment of lesbian mothers in British courts
By Lucy Sweeney Byrne
Timothy O’Grady: ‘You feel miserable most of the time when you’re writing’
O’Grady discusses his fourth book, Monaghan, working on Stephen Rea’s memoir and the current political climate in the US
By John Self
Military Maverick: a British war hero who later aided the IRA
A man of intellectual arrogance and social insecurity with a contempt for ‘blue bloods’ who dominated top ranks of the British army
By Charles Lysaght
Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The lives and loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell - pithy, incisive and fascinating
Thanks to her ample research and pleasing style, the author brings alive two complicated individuals
By Jessica Traynor
Perfect Storm by Thane Gustafson: A thorough study of the use and abuse of sanctions on Russia, and what could happen next
The author, an expert on the geopolitics of energy, is particularly interesting on the impact of sanctions on the global oil industry
By Conor O’Clery
Europe without Borders: a detailed history of the Schengen system - Skilful account of a tense balancing of freedoms
Book breaks new ground by revealing the abiding strains over Schengen’s construction and operation
By Paul Gillespie
Letters to the Editor, June 21st: On public service, the cost of living and sunscreen
A simple example demonstrates the depth of this dysfunction
Boston rape trial: Judge declares mistrial after jury unable to reach verdict
Terence Crosbie (38) had been on trial for raping a 29-year-old attorney in a hotel room in Boston
By Susan Zalkind in Boston
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