All books are shelved in the Fiction section unless otherwise noted
All comments are from the publisher or the library catalog unless otherwise noted

 

    Heart and soul by Maeve Binchy
With the warmth, humor, and compassion we have come to expect, Maeve Binchy tells a story of doctors and staff, patients, family, and friends at a heart clinic in a community caught between the old Ireland and the new.

 

     I don’t want to go to jail: a good novel by Jimmy Breslin
Fausti 'the Fist' Dellacava is the most feared mobster in all of Gotham. But running the family business is proving to be problematic as the Feds start closing in. So what's a mobster to do to stay out of the slammer? Fausti chooses to go down the insanity route.

    The awakening by Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin's novel is a probing psychological study of a woman who, oppressed by family life and her romantic difficulties, drowns herself in the ocean. It is also an examination of a particular culture at the end of the 19th century: the aristocratic society of southern Louisiana. Condemned at the time it was written, THE AWAKENING has been valued in later years for its unflinching honesty and sexual frankness.  alibris

    Dashing through the snow by Mary Higgins Clark
Amateur-sleuth Alvirah Meehan and private-investigator Regan Reilly have arrived in Branscombe, New Hampshire, for the Festival of Joy. They are just the people to find out what is amiss. As they dig beneath the surface, they find that life in Branscombe is not as tranquil as it appears.

    Ginger man by J.P. Donleavy
Donleavy's famously bawdy comic novel is about a man who lives for booze and woman and who discards all the restricting conventions of polite society. Donleavy was unable to find a publisher for a novel considered scatological, blasphemous, and generally offensive. It was finally published in Paris by the Olympia Press

 

     Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle
Doyle has movingly depicted a woman, both strong and fragile, who is fighting back and finally equipped to be a mother to her children — but now that they're mostly grown up, is it too late? Doyle's fans and new readers alike will root for Paula to stay clean and find a little healing for herself and her children, amidst the threat that it may all go wrong.

    Studs Lonigan: a trilogy by James T.  Farrell
Studs Lonigan is one of the masterpieces of American naturalism and a major influence on generations of American novelists.  Of the milieu in which the trilogy is rooted, Farrell later wrote: "As to the Irishness of it, I generally feel that I'm an Irishman rather than an American," and later added: "I am a second-generation Irish-American. The effects and scars of immigrations are upon my life. . . . For an Irish boy born in Chicago in 1904, the past was a tragedy of his people."

   The great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
As Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom--and the narrator, Daisy's cousin Nick Carroway, who serves as the author's spokesman--play out the drama in a small Long Island town (the East Hampton of its day), Fitzgerald makes it increasingly clear that life is meaningless when it is based on money and glamour at the expense of the solid American values of self-reliance and hard work--and Gatsby's sad end underscores the point.

    Irish linen: a Nuala Anne McGrail novel by Andrew M. Greeley
The perils of wartime add special urgency to latest mysteries being investigated by Nuala Anne McGrail and her adoring husband, Dermot Coyne.   More than a little fey, Nuala has a well-deserved reputation for getting to the bottom of even the most tangled intrigues, even when they may be taking place on the other side of the world.

 

    North River by Pete Hamill
Recreating 1930s New York with the vibrancy and rich detail that are his trademarks, Hamill weaves a story of honor, family, and one man's simple courage.

 

    Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin
Mark Helprin's legions of devoted readers cherish his timeless novels and short stories, which are uplifting in their conviction of the goodness and resilience of the human spirit. Freddy and Fredericka — a brilliantly refashioned fairy tale and a magnificently funny farce — only seems like a radical departure of form, for behind the laughter, Helprin speaks of leaps of faith and second chances, courage and the primacy of love. Helprin's latest work, an extraordinarily funny allegory about a most peculiar British royal family, is immensely mocking of contemporary monarchy and yet deeply sympathetic to the individuals caught in its lonely absurdities

    The Dubliners by James Joyce                                                        YA Joy           
Joyce's celebrated short-story sequence provides a vivid and disturbing picture of early 20th-century Dublin and its inhabitants, whom Joyce saw as trapped in a repressed and stultifying environment. The stories are divided into five types: childhood, adolescence, marriage, maturity, and various aspects of public life, including politics. They embody Joyce's belief in the value of what he called epiphanies--insights into life that can be compared to the religious concept of the Epiphany, and that Joyce believed art can provide via the transformation of mundane events. The last story, "The Dead"--the brilliant and moving dissection of a failed marriage--actually takes place on the Feast of the Epiphany.

 

    Angela’s ashes by Frank McCourt                                                            BIO
The author recounts his childhood in Depression-era Brooklyn as the child of Irish immigrants who decide to return to worse poverty in Ireland when his infant sister dies.

    Down by the river by Edna O’Brien
DOWN BY THE RIVER begins, deceptively, in an idyllic rural setting somewhere in Ireland. By the end, its consequences have addressed and divided the political and judicial fabric of the nation.

    I think I’m outta here: a memoir of all my families by Carroll O’Connor                                                                                                                BIO
A memoir of life in Hollywood by the popular television and film actor.  O'Connor describes his early life in New York, his wartime service in the merchant marine, his college years in Dublin, and the start of his career as an actor--which eventually brought him fame as the star of Norman Lear's long-running comedy show "All in the Family".  alibris

 

    Last night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan
Managing a failed seafood restaurant in a run-down New England mall just before Christmas, Manny DeLeon coordinates a challenging final shift of mutinous staff members, an effort that is complicated by his love for a waitress, a pregnant girlfriend, and an elusive holiday gift.

    Blessings: a novel by Anna Quindlen
This is a powerful novel of love, redemption, and personal change by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer about whom the Washington Post Book World said, "Quindlen knows that all the things we ever will be can be found in some forgotten fragment of family.

    The story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
Captain Gault has decided that his family must leave Lahardane. They are, after all, Protestants living in the big house in rural Cork, and the country is in turmoil. It is 1921. But eight-year-old Lucy can't bear to leave the seashore, the old house, the woods - so she hatches a plan.  Powell’s Book

 

    The Canterville ghost and other stories by Oscar Wilde         YA Wil     
There has been a ghost in the house for three hundred years, and Lord Canterville's family have had enough of it. So Lord Canterville sells his grand old house to an American family. Mr Hiram B. Otis is happy to buy the house and the ghost - because of course Americans don't believe in ghosts. The Canterville ghost has great plans to frighten the life out of the Otis family. But Americans don't frighten easily - especially not two noisy little boys - and the poor ghost has a few surprises waiting for him.