A look at books - top Irish new releases in fiction and history

The Irish were among the first to battle reductive notions about the worth of immigrants, and in the process they helped forge a larger multiethnic American identity, a remarkable turnaround.

Barnett’s book is the most insightful meditation on that transformation to have appeared in recent years.
Penguin, $29.95.

Britain And Ireland’s Best Wild Places
By Christopher Somerville

Sometimes a man (or woman) takes it into his head to break out of imprisoning routines and branch out with a new project.

That kind of resolution can often lead to a journey, as it did with author Christopher Somerville, who set himself the revivifying task of exploring the wild forgotten corners of Ireland and Britain for a year.

Gifted with a mordant eye and immense patience, Somerville turns out to be an ideal candidate for an epic journey around the Emerald Isle, taking us on the back roads to the back of beyond.

The thing about Ireland’s out-of-the-way places is that they have retained their untrammeled charm, and Somerville becomes our delighted tour guide, gleefully drawing our attention to ruined churches, abandoned cottages, hidden waterfalls and forgotten woods.

Check out all this overlooked wonder, he enthuses, remembering to note that generation after generation of war and economic crisis have had paid an unexpected dividend -- whole swathes of the country are still preserved in their pristine grandeur. This remarkable guide aims to help you rediscover them all.
Penguin, $22.

Bloodland
By Alan Glynn

Fans of Alan Glynn’s debut novel The Dark Fields, a fast paced thriller that was made into the box office smash Limitless starring Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper, will know what to expect from Bloodlands, the Irish thriller writer’s latest.

Glynn excels at crafting multi-layered storylines and then filling them with an ever-increasing paranoic dread that will reel you in from the first page.

In Bloodlands we meet investigative journalist Jimmy Gilroy, who unravels a bizarre series of fatal or near fatal coincidences that all point to the same source and soon begin to threaten his life.

Glynn’s cinematic skill is evident as ever, and Bloodlands, which has already won the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Award, looks certain to transition from the page to the silver screen with the ease of his debut shocker. Lots of thriller can entertain you, but Glynn’s is that rare thing -- it also makes you think.
Picador, $16.

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Nster.com