Ireland, 1912 – 1985 is a wonderfully opinionated, highly entertaining and deeply erudite history of Ireland from the beginning of the Home Rule Crisis to the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

It is certainly the best single volume history of 20th century Ireland. Each chapter contains much that is novel and insightful even for those familiar with the periods under discussion. The author’s comparisons of Ireland to other countries on the periphery of Europe which obtained independence at about the same time, such as Finland and Poland, lifts the book out of any risk of parochialism: This approach places Irish history in its European context and allows for a more clear sighted assessment of what we, as a nation, can be proud of as well as what we have failed at and where we should be ashamed. Prof Lee is scathing in his judgements of the lazy and stupid, from political leaders through academics to journalists, but is highly sympathetic to those ordinary people, particularly Northern nationalists, who have found themselves on the losing side of history.

A work of genius.

Margery Forester’s “Michael Collins: The Lost Leader” was generally regarded as the definitive biography of Collins until Tim Pat Coogan’s more recent work. Where Coogan excels on the military aspects of Collins career, particularly the conduct of the intelligence war, Forester offers a more personal picture, with much of her work based on family papers. The result is a fine readable account of Collins life, with the sections from the truce to Collins’ death particularly gripping.

Forester notes how Collins mentioned to one of his colleagues during his final tour of Cork, that “Dev” – Eamon deValera, the anti-treaty political leader – was rumoured to be in the same locality. She doesn’t explore the theory that this is exactly why Collins himself was there – to explore options for peace. Unfortunately breakdown in intermediaries meant that this effort ended in the tragedy of Collins’ own death.

She also subscribes somewhat to the theory of youthful impetuosity and lack of field craft as principle factors contributing to Collins death at Beal na mBlath, wishing that he had acquiesed in Emmet Dalton’s instruction to Collins’ driver to “Drive like hell” through the ambush when the first shots hit, rather than stop and fight. Accounts elsewhere from other members of Collins’ party, state that the road was strewn with broken bottles ahead of the dray that blocked the convoy’s way. This suggests that Collins may have been more tactically astute than he has previously be given credit for, in ordering the halt rather than, in an attempt to run the ambush, risking catastrophic damage to the tires of the vehicles and rendering the entire convoy sitting ducks in the midst of hostile countryside.

Whatever the circumstances the abiding tragedy of Collins’ death is well conveyed in this book which shows his growth from impetuous youth to effective revolutionary to statesman in a few short years, and leaves the reader with the aching wonder of what might have been achieved had he lived.

I know I am in a minority in not being bowled over by this book which comes trailing praise and prizes by the bucketload.

It is unquestionably a beautifully written work based on what seems like an awesome research effort. The conceit of the book is very clever: following the lives of the, mostly Jewish, owners of a collection of Japanese netsuke from their arrival in France in the nineteenth century through the author’s family until they end up in his possession. The form of the book is then influenced by the form of the netsuke – minature portraits of the author’s relatives in relation to each other and to some aspects of key events of the late nineteenth and twentieth century including the Dreyfuss affair, Japanese reconstruction post-Second World War, and, of course, the Holocaust.

I must say I struggled with the early parts of the book which related to the netsuke’s first owner, Charles, who the author discovers was an inspiration for Proust’s Swann. The author insists he came to like this character, but I am not sure he found him as engaging as some of his other relatives. I felt the book became considerably more alive when the scene shifted to Vienna, particularly his great grandmother Emmy, legendary in Vienna even today for her vast array of lovers, and his grandmother, the extraordinary, Elizabeth, who became the first woman to obtain a doctorate of law from Vienna university and, at some considerable risk to herself, returned to Austria after Anschluss, in an attempt to save her family from the Nazis.

The section dealing with Anschluss and its consequences is the most powerful section of the book, but the parts dealing with the author’s beloved uncle Iggy are also deeply moving.

Aside from the difficulties I had with the Paris section I think one of the frustrations I had with the book was wanting to know more. This is probably a churlish expectation given, as the author notes, he was writing about a period where the Nazis tried to erase or “overwrite” his family from European history and some of his own relatives wished their secrets to go to the grave with them, destroying correspondence to this end.

A book that leaves one hungering for more is usually the measure of a fine work. Its a deeply impressive piece of work even if it is not everyone’s dish of tea.

The Boy in the River is Richard Hoskins fine account of his involvement in the investigation of the murder of baby “Adam” – a child whose headless torso was found in the Thames, the victim of a ritual sacrifice. Hoskins knowledge of African religions provided particular insight into this case illuminating a particularly vile and little known aspect of human trafficking: that for human sacrifice.

His knowledge, honed through academic research, originated from his work as a missionary in Congo, and his memoir of this time and the tragedy he and his family suffered there is compelling. Towards the end of the book Hoskins leaves, perhaps deliberately, several loose ends in relation to this tragedy. But this is probably fair enough: the book must have been a particularly difficult one to write. As it stands it is an accessible and brave work on one of the darkest aspects of modern society.