Books

Norah Vincent transforms herself into man for a year and manages to avoid the anti-male rhetoric often expected from a book of this genre, by David Kamp

At a time of bereavement, we often find ourselves without the right words to express what a loved one meant to us. When speaking at a funeral, we want to make a personal and worthy tribute, a final goodbye to someone important to us. Often, we choose to adopt the words of others: poets, writers or musicians whose works can describe the universal feeling of loss and sadness better than we ever could.

The Irish publishing year of 2005 was dominated by John Banville whose novel The Sea won the Man Booker and stalled the author's focus on his detective fiction as he engaged in a publicity whirl for the book. Due in paperback in a few months, The Sea now heads the nominees for the Irish Book Awards, due to be announced (in Fiction, non-Fiction and Children's) on 1 March.

Real Cool, Poems to Grow Up with is a collection of poems for all lovers of poetry and especially for young people whose interest  extends beyond the classroom

Thrity Umrigar's novel highlights the futility of the Indian caste system, by Ligaya Mishan

Just as Socrates and Descartes, in their different ways, argued for the ability of the human psyche to endure beyond death, film allows us to have the experience of the soul existing without needing a body to contain it. By Wyatt Mason

Christopher Hitchens reviews a new translation of Flaubert's last, unfinished work. This novel was intended to show its author's deep contempt, comedically expressed, for all grand schemes, most especially the Rousseauean ones, to improve the human lot

Just a few of the Cork terms that are explained in That's Cork: use one in a sentence today.

Tom Galvin's latest book, That's Cork, is less of a tourist guide and more of a psychological insight into what makes the quirkiest city in Ireland tick. By David White

Book Notes felt that one of the major benefits of modern living was the proliferation of bookstores throughout the city and the fact that any book one wanted, within reason, should be within easy reach. However, the tools of Book Notes' trade are new releases to be found on all shelves.