Billy Leahy samples the emptiness of place in Maureen Gallace's second solo exhibition on the ideas of landscape and home

Terry Jones's Who Murdered Chaucer? and War on the War on Terror.  Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and the  Man Booker Prize winner Ismail Kadare

The Bisto Book of the Year Awards

Following Newsweek's publication of the mishandling of the Koran in Guantanamo, Conor Brady writes about the use and misuse of anonymous sources

At my lunchtime read of the newspaper, I tend to avoid the awful stories and last week there were plenty of them: the mistreatment of elderly people in care facilities; the Morris Tribunal report; and the matter of the ex-cleric charged and found guilty of the sexual abuse of the two national school pupils in Sligo in the 1970s. I read as far as the bit where we learned it was his practice to hang them up on hooks on the back of the classroom doors and I thought immediately, well, maybe I should go back to work a bit early, I'll leave that for tonight when I'll be better able to handle it.

At the time of the abolition of the dual mandate, Mildred Fox colourfully explained to the Dail why being a TD and a Councillor were reconcilable. She said that, since the council met for just six hours a month, it took up "less time than Coronation Street." Her contribution to Dail debate since then has taken up less time than one episode of Coronation Street.

John Waters jiving at the crossroads with Seán Doherty

He planned to become the best singer in the world and he succeeded. But Frank Sinatra was a man with a lot of demons. Tom Galvin looks at a new book which focuses on the darker side of Ol' Blue Eyes

The Pirate Queen sets off into calm waters, under the shadow of Croagh Patrick, towards the home of Grace O'Malley. It's not O'Malley that today's group of tourists are looking for, though. Lurching about the lolling ferry in tweeds and macs is an eclectic group of academics. Dawson Street's Royal Irish Academy is venturing out to Clare Island, for a book launch.

For the last thirty years, numerous reports have attempted to provoke Government action on nursing homes, but to no avail. By Hilary Curley