Breslin’s book is accessible, straightforward, honest and full of good tips
This week there’s a new cookbook by an internet sensation, a book about minding ourselves and our mental health, an account of the crazed and crazy shenanigans that go on in Facebook, and a book of essays about monuments.
The Place that has Never Been Wounded, Niall Breslin, John Murray, €16.99
Musician, broadcaster, podcaster and mental health campaigner, proud Mullingar man Bressie has produced this book to encourage readers to slow down, take stock, look inwards and find the core within us that is not bobbed about like a cork on the sea, blown this way and that by life’s many trials.
He believes that if we can find and nurture that core, we can enjoy peace of mind and a more meaningful life. In his introduction, he describes his first panic attack at the age of 14 and how terrified he felt.
Depression or anxiety often hits for no apparent reason and sufferers sometimes don’t know why they’re depressed or anxious, they only know that they’re suffering. But this book is not aimed only at people who live anxious lives, it’s aimed at the general reader.
And if we’re honest, we could all do with less stress in our lives. Breslin aims to relieve that stress in us by pointing out that our deepest core does not get so easily ruffled. The idea is not new, but reading Breslin’s book is far more enjoyable than wading through esoteric texts like the Dhammapada or the Tao Te Ching.
It’s accessible, straightforward, honest and full of good tips. (On a different note, Breslin presented a fine RTÉ documentary about the unmarked graves in the grounds of St Loman’s Hospital, Mullingar, which is well worth a watch. It’s on RTÉ Player if you missed it.)
The Irish Mammy Cooks Cookbook, Orla Drumgoole, Gill, €24.99
Anyone who uses social media has probably seen the Irish Mammy in action. She has become hugely popular, probably because her specialty is prepping and cooking ordinary dishes that our own Irish mammies cooked for us in childhood.
There’s a real sense of nostalgia, a sense of family comfort about what she does, and this is her unique appeal. Orla Drumgoole is a retired teacher and says in her introduction ‘I think it’s OK as a woman to love to cook, bake and feed people – it has become my love language too.’
Gill publishers do stylish cookbooks and this is no exception. It’s beautifully illustrated and produced, making it an attractive present. And if you’ve got lots of ambitious cookbooks on your shelf that bring the tastes of Asia or Italy or South America to your kitchen, but few that feature plain, honest-to-god everyday dishes like Drumgoole’s, well here’s your chance to cook like your Mammy!
Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams, Macmillan, €10.99
Subtitled ‘A Story of Where I Used to Work’, this is the story of Facebook, now Meta, and its mission to conquer the world. Wynn-Williams is a New Zealander and before her life in Facebook, she worked in international diplomacy.
With a strong social conscience, she found the red tape in politics frustratingly slow. So, when a job popped up in Facebook in 2011, she was thrilled to get it. This will be a force for good, she thought. Connecting people and communities to change all the wrongs in the world, and we’ll do it at breakneck speed. What an opportunity! Indeed.
She worked in the inner sanctum, alongside Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, notorious author of Lean In, a book full of endless hypocrisy. This is a story that’s simply gobsmacking. And Facebook, now Meta, did everything they could to stop its publication. It’s to the author’s credit that she had the mettle to endure their moves to stop her.
The book is out, everyone’s talking about it, and it delivers on its promise. The naked greed, the entitled self-importance of these people, are astounding, while the damage they have done and continue to do is permanent. Ireland is unclean, too. You would not believe the strokes Enda Kenny pulled to keep them here and keep them tax-free. Then again, you would not believe most of this tell-all book, but fact is always stranger than fiction. Calling Zuckerberg and Co ‘careless’ is doing them an undeserved kindness. I can think of more accurate descriptions, most of them unprintable.
As If Nothing Could Fall, Various authors, PVA Books, €15
Subtitled ‘Essays on Monuments’, this book includes essays by the likes of Roisin Kiberd, Belinda McKeon and Neil Hegarty, alongside writers you may not have heard of, but as always with PVA essay compilations, they are almost all exquisitely written. It seems that the brief was more or less ‘carte blanche but connect it loosely to what monuments mean to you’. And the result is a bundle of different takes on what monuments mean to the writers.
One or two decided to treat their own bodies as monuments to themselves; some people really can’t see beyond their own noses and this kind of ‘confessional’ writing went out with the last chapter of Normal People. But thankfully most essays are not so self-involved. Sean Lynch’s ‘Cursed by Bill Clinton’ is laced with mischievous humour. It’s an entertaining story of how the writer came to be in possession of one of Bill Clinton’s balls. (You’ll have to read it!)
Roisin Kiberd’s essay, prompted by the statue of Robespierre that was unveiled in communist Moscow in 1918 and crumbled to nothing four days later, is a fine piece of work. Belinda McKeon weaves a beautiful story around a simple, rusty farmyard gate. A collection like this is invaluable, to be returned to many times.
Footnotes
A unique festival takes place on Achill Island this Easter weekend, celebrating its life and culture. All events are free and it would make an ideal family break without incurring massive costs. See islandlifefestival.com for details.
Starting on Good Friday and continuing until April 12 is Pilgrim Paths Week, taking place in various locations across the country, including Meath, Louth and of course Lough Derg. See pilgrimpath.ie for details, although I found their website glitchy, but they also have a Facebook page with contact details on PilgrimPathIRL.