Extract from Rossport Five book: In June 2005 the Rossport 5 were jailed for refusing to obey a court order instructing them not to interfere with the Corrib gas pipeline. Below is an extract from their book, published last week, in which Vincent McGrath, one of the five, recalls the 94 days he spent in Cloverhill jail
Colm Tóibín's beautiful collection of short stories tells nine tales of uneasy, elusive relationships between mothers and sons. Review by Pico Iyer
A round up on the week's booknews. By Edward O'Hare
Simon Barnes's The Meaning of Sport may not find an answer to its inherent question, but it certainly is entertaining. Refuting the theory that sport is for morons, the writer argues that it is in fact an essential part of our animal nature. Review by Ken Early
This is the story of Mack Ryan, aged 39 (no, really), who turns to the confusing world of the lonely hearts page in search of love.
John Sutherland, former Man Booker Prize judge and well-known critic, spurns the idea that the novel is dead in his new book, which examines how and why we read. Review by Tom Shone.
A round up of the week's book news
Thomas Kinsella: A Dublin Documentary is a collection of poems and memories of an Ireland long past, where the church and the grandparent ruled; a retrospective journey through the difficult life of one of Ireland's most challenging poets. By Gerald Dawe.
I grew up in what was a theocracy in all but name. Hell and heaven and purgatory were places real and certain we would go to after death, dependent on the Judgement. Churches in my part of Ireland were so crowded that children and old people who were fasting to receive Communion would regularly pass out in the bad air and have to be carried outside. Not to attend Sunday Mass was to court social ostracism, to be seen as mad or consorting with the devil, or, at best, to be seriously eccentric.
The detail of Victoria Glendinning's eminently readable biography of Leonard Woolf gives the reader the measure of the man – accomplished, passionate, reserved, stoical. By Claire Messud