Woulfe's Bookshop

18/10/2013

Please vote for Woulfe's, it would mean so much!
http://bordgaisenergybookshopoftheyear.ie/

The Bord Gais Energy Bookshop of the Year Award 2013 recognises and celebrates the vital role Irish bookshops play in their local communities. Voting now.

08/03/2013

The Night Rainbow
By Claire King

During one long, hot summer, five-year-old Pea and her
little sister Margot play alone in the meadow behind their house, on the edge of a small village in Southern France. Her mother is too sad to take care of them; she left her
happiness in the hospital, along with the baby. Pea's father has died in an accident and Maman, burdened by her
double grief and isolated from the village by her Englishness, has retreated to a place where Pea cannot reach her - although she tries desperately to do so.
Then Pea meets Claude, a man who seems to love the meadow as she does and who always has time to play. Pea believes that she and Margot have found a friend, and maybe even a new papa. But why do the villagers view Claude with suspicion? And what secret is he keeping in his strange, empty house?
Elegantly written, haunting and gripping, The Night Rainbow is a novel about innocence and experience, grief and compassion and the dangers of an
overactive imagination.

Wheat Belly Cookbook
By William Davis

The original Wheat Belly helped spawn a wheat-free
revolution. Now, the principles articulated in the first book have caused many readers to ask for more information on just how to accomplish this shift in food choices away from wheat and towards foods that are least harmful and most nutritious. This cookbook is a response to the demand for wheat-free recipes, including baked goods like cookies and muffins that are limited in
carbohydrates and sugars, and still promote good health from head to toe. The cookbook includes upfront chapters explaining the science and plan of the original Wheat Belly diet, with the latest scientific updates, plus a Wheat Belly kitchen guide and all-new testimonials from readers who have lost their wheat bellies by following the program. The cookbook also gives readers over a
hundred recipes for rise-and-shine breakfasts like Lemon Poppy Seed Pancakes and Breakfast Souffle; hearty midday meals including Fish and Chips and the Tuna Wrap; savoury dinners the whole family will love such as Spaghetti
Bolognese and Bruschetta Chicken on Angel Hair; and satisfying sweets like Peanut Butter Pie and Creamy Coconut Pudding - all wheat-free, heart-healthy, and utterly delicious.

Do They Think We’re Eejits
By Mary Rafferty

A selection of The Irish Times Columns 2003-2009
Mary Raftery (1957 – 2012) was a journalist, filmmaker and writer. She started her investigative journalism career with In Dublin magazine in the 1970s, before moving on to
Magill Magazine and then to RTÉ in 1984.
A new book Do They Think We're Eejits? is a selection of Irish Times columns by award-winning journalist Mary Raftery. The late pioneer has been cited as one of the most important investigative journalists of her time and the book is
edited by Sheila Ahern.
“Mary Raftery was unquestionably the most important Irish journalist of the last 30 years…she was one of the very few members of the profession
anywhere of whom it can be said without a hint of exaggeration that they
didn’t just reflect their society, they changed it. In her case, she changed Ireland significantly and for the better.” Fintan O’Toole

22/02/2013

Books of the Week
Cloud Atlas
By David Mitchell

By the author of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, David Mitchell's bestselling and Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, one of Richard & Judy's 100 Books of the Decade, CLOUD ATLAS has now been adapted for film. The major motion picture, directed by the Wachowskis and Tom
Tykwer, stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent and Hugh Grant.

The novel features six characters in interlocking stories, each interrupting the one before it: a reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified dinery server on
death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation. The narrators of CLOUD ATLAS hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changes in ways great and small.


The Child’s Child
By Barbara Vine

The Child's Child is the new crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine. What sort of betrayal would drive a brother and sister apart?

When Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house in Hampstead, they decide to move in together. It seems the obvious thing to do: they've always got on well, the house is large enough to split down the middle, and neither of them likes partying or loud music. There's one thing they've forgotten though: what if one of them wants to bring a lover into the house? When Andrew's partner James moves in, it alters the balance - with almost fatal consequences.

A taut, thrilling read, it will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin.


The Famine Plot
By Tim Pat Coogan

England’s Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy

The definitive book on the Great Famine from Ireland's greatest historian, combining the latest research and fresh insights. The Great Famine was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration in Ireland. Between 1845 and 1852 the island's population dropped by 2.5 million—a full quarter of its citizens - and its legacy continues to be felt. For both the native Irish and those in the resulting diaspora, the famine entered folk memory and became a rallying point for nationalist movements for decades. This is a fascinating and sobering look at a dark period of global history, as well as the ramifications of the 'famine mentality' that continues to haunt Ireland to this day.

07/02/2013

Return of The King:
By William Dalrymple

In the spring of 1839, the British invaded Afghanistan for the first time. Led by lancers in scarlet cloaks and plumed shakos, nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the high mountain passes and
re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk.
On the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after two years of
occupation, the Afghan people rose in answer to the call for jihad and the country exploded into violent rebellion. The First Anglo-Afghan War ended in Britain's greatest military humiliation of the nineteenth century: an entire army of the then most powerful nation in the world ambushed in retreat and utterly routed by poorly equipped tribesmen.
Return of a King is the definitive analysis of the First Afghan War, told through the lives of unforgettable characters on all sides and using for the first time contemporary Afghan accounts of the conflict. Prize-winning and bestselling historian William Dalrymple's masterful retelling of Britain's greatest imperial disaster is a powerful and important parable of colonial ambition and
cultural collision, folly and hubris, for our times.

The Blind Man’s Garden
By Nadeem Aslam

Love is not consolation, it is light.'

From the author of Maps for Lost Lovers comes a searing, exquisitely written novel set in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the months following 9/11 - a story of war, of one
family's losses, and of the simplest, most enduring human impulses.
Jeo and Mikal, foster-brothers from a small Pakistani city, secretly enter Afghanistan: not to fight with the Taliban, but to help and care for wounded civilians. But it soon becomes apparent that good intentions can't keep them out of harm's way...
From the wilds of Afghanistan to the heart of the family left behind - their blind father haunted for years by the death of his wife, by the mistakes he may have made in the name of Islam and nationhood, Jeo's steadfast wife and her superstitious mother - Aslam's prose takes us on an extraordinary journey, through war, tragedy, love and brotherhood.

Religion for Atheists
By Alain de Botton

All of us, whether religious, agnostic or atheist, are
searching for meaning. And in this wise and life-affirming book, non-believer Alain de Botton both rejects the
supernatural claims of religion and points out just how many good ideas they sometimes have about how we should live.
And he suggests that non-believers can learn and steal from them.
Picking and choosing from the thousands of years of advice assembled by the world's great religions to get practical insights on art, community, love, friendship, work, life and death, Alain de Botton shows us a range of
fascinating ideas on a range of topics, including relationships, work, culture, love and death - and that could be of use to all of us, irrespective of whether we do or don't believe.

06/12/2012

Listowel
Snapshots of an Irish Market Town
By Vincent Carmody

The book takes a look at the social history of the town through the medium of very many old and rare billheads/letterheads, these when matched with
appropriate photographs and social comment and presented in full colour will leave the reader reluctant to leave each and every page. The book which has taken twenty years to compile is sure to become a collectors item in a short while and should become a popular stocking filler and ideal gift this Christmas. A4 size, hard covered and in colour, the book runs to over 260 pages.

The official launch of this book will be at The Listowel Arms Hotel on next Sunday, December 9th at 5pm.


In The Shadows of the School
By Dick Carmody

The book is a small window into the past, documenting
people and events in a local community in a time of great change. The arrival of electricity, motorised transport and farm mechanisation were but some of the events that would make such an impact on an already vibrant and viable local community. People were enterprising and resourceful, families were relatively self-contained and
self-sufficient while the spirit of cos-haring and co-operation provided that extra support and re-assurance to allow people to become part of a wider community. Whether working the land, playing their national games or in pursuit of religious duties, people were ever in each other’s shadow. Despite the passage of time, there remains a strong sense of local identity, a sense and a pride of place that transcends the many changes that have taken place.
This North Kerry Landscape, a tapestry of farms and bog land, had at its centre the local school, a landmark that has become synonymous with the spirit, endurance and the determination of the people it serves.


Ballylongford
A Photographic Memoir
By Nancy McAuliffe

Local history provides the building block for our island story; hence, this second volume of Ballylongford: A photographic Memoir, a treasure trove of local history, will be widely
welcomed. Besides the pictures, people and places, the informative captions therein are a valuable source for genealogists and all who are interested in their ‘roots’. Nancy McAuliffe is to be
congratulated for her careful garnering of the pictorial records of her beloved
Ballylongford. Her remarkable exercise in peitas will be appreciated well beyond the boundaries of North Kerry.

Open every Sunday for December
Open late on December 21st

05/12/2012

15/11/2012

Flight Behaviour
by Barbara Kingsolver
Discontented with her life of poverty on a failing farm in the Eastern United States, Dellarobia, a young mother,
impulsively seeks out an affair. Instead, on the Appalachian mountains above her home, she discovers something much more profoundly life-changing - a beautiful and terrible
marvel of nature. As the world around her is suddenly
transformed by a seeming miracle, can the old certainties they have lived by for centuries remain unchallenged? Flight Behaviour is a captivating, topical and deeply human story touching on class, poverty and climate change. It is Barbara Kingsolver's most accessible novel yet, and explores the truths we live by, and the complexities that lie behind them.

Beef or Salmon - Leap of Faith
by Donal Keenan
The racehorse who dominated Irish racing but never won outside the island was adored by the Irish public as much for his imperfections as for his brilliance.
Born on a small farm to a first time breeder, with a pedigree that prompted more doubt than optimism, Salmon was the youngster no racing trainer wanted. His future as a racehorse looked over before it even began and only the true
judgment and vision of a real horseman, Michael Hourigan, got the horse “with a big arse and a ratty little head” to a racecourse.
Once there, Salmon met triumph and disaster head-on, and treated them both with equal disdain. From the incredible highs of winning at Leopardstown to the lows of losing at Cheltenham, Beef or Salmon enchanted the two nations on either side of the Irish Sea.
Dismissed by many as a “no hoper” and “washed up”, the horse forced his critics to eat their words with a blend of talent, speed and courage, which saw him win an incredible 10 Grade One victories over fences.
The incredible tale of, perhaps, the most unlikely racing champion Ireland has ever produced, unfurls across four decades and across the Atlantic Ocean, from the boardroom of a bankrupt American billionaire, to the gently rolling hills of Munster.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid
by Jeff Kinney
The Third Wheel
The Third Wheel is the hilarious seventh book in the brilliant, bestselling and award-winning Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Perfect for readers of 8+ and all the millions of Wimpy Kid fans. Also now a box office-busting major motion franchise with the third Wimpy Kid movie, Dog Days released in the UK in August 2012!
Share in the hilarious adventures of everyone's favourite wimpy kid, Greg Heffley, in the highly-anticipated seventh book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

Martin Ferris T.D. will introduce Conor O’Sullivan reading from his Memoir REBEL MIND, the story of his survival at Woulfe’s Bookshop on Saturday 24th November at 2pm.
This is an inspiring tale of love, courage, black humour and Irish Republicanism

26/10/2012

Our page is featured on a new poster by Kerry Internet Marketing which is about to be published throughout Listowel...

13/07/2012

The Prisoner of Heaven
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

The third in the cycle of novels that began with The Shadow Of The Wind and The Angel’s Game. The Prisoner Of Heaven returns to the world of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the
Sempere & Sons bookshop. It begins just before Christmas in Barcelona in 1957, one year after Daniel and Bea from The Shadow Of The Wind have married. They now have a son, Julian, and are living with Daniel's father at Sempere & Sons. Fermin still works with them and is busy preparing for his wedding to Bernarda in the New Year. However something appears to be bothering him. Daniel is alone in the shop one morning when a mysterious figure with a pronounced limp enters. He spots one of their most precious volumes that is kept locked in a glass cabinet, a beautiful and unique illustrated edition of The Count of Monte Cristo. Despite the fact that the stranger seems to care little for books, he wants to buy this expensive edition. Then, to Daniel's surprise, the man inscribes the book with the words 'To Fermin Romero de Torres, who came back from the dead and who holds the key to the future'. This visit leads back to a story of imprisonment, betrayal and the return of a deadly rival.

One on One
by Craig Brown

101 chance meetings, juxtaposing the famous and the infamous, the artistic and the philistine, the pompous and the comical, the snobbish and the vulgar, each 1,001 words long, and with a time span stretching from the 19th century to the 21st.
Life is made up of individuals meeting one another. They speak, or don’t speak. They get on, or don’t get on. They make agreements, which they either hold to or ignore. They laugh, they cry, they are excited, they are indifferent, they share secrets, they say, “How do you do?” Often it is the most fleeting of
meetings that, in the fullness of time, turn out to be the most noteworthy.
‘One on One’ examines the curious nature of different types of meeting, from the oddity of encounters with the Royal Family (who start giggling during a recital by TS Eliot) to those often perilous meetings between old and young (Mark Twain
terrifying Rudyard Kipling) and between young and old (the 23-year-old Sarah Miles having her leg squeezed by the nonagenarian Bertrand Russell), to
contemporary random encounters (George Galloway meeting Michael Barrymore on Celebrity Big Brother).
Ingenious in its construction, witty in its narration, panoramic in its breadth, ‘One on One’ is a wholly original book.


The Dirty Life
by Kristin Kimball

A Story of Farming the Land and Falling in Love
When Manhattan writer Kristin Kimball arrived to interview Mark on a Pennsylvanian farm, she was wearing high heels and a crisp white shirt and had been vegetarian for thirteen years. That evening, she found herself helping him to slaughter a pig. By the next morning she was tucking into sizzling homemade sausages drizzled with warm maple syrup, and within a few months she'd given up her life in the city and moved with Mark, their combined savings, and a dozen chickens to a derelict farm in a remote
corner of upstate New York. They gave themselves a year to transform 500 badly neglected acres into an organic community farm. Passionate, inspiring and
gorgeously written, this is a story about falling in love with a man and with a
different way to live, complete with runaway piglets and dew-fresh lettuce, sceptical locals and a wedding in a hayloft.

06/07/2012

New Books of the Week - Brenda's Choice.
Friends Forever
by Danielle Steel

Five children meet on their first day of school, one bright September morning. Drawn by that magical spark of connection that happens to the young, Gabby, Billy, Izzie, Andy and Sean - each bursting with their own personality, all with strikingly different looks and diverse talents - soon become an inseparable group, known to everyone else as the Big Five.
As they grow up, their seemingly perfect lives are altered by families falling apart, unfortunate mistakes, and losses and victories great and small. Their lives separate, the challenges and risks they face become greater, the losses sharper, and it becomes much harder to know the right path to choose.
But despite life's ups and downs, together they are able to face up to challenges with the help of the important bonds forged all those years ago. And the five realise just how lucky they are to treasure valuable friendships that last a lifetime.

Rip It Up
by Richard Wiseman

Rip up this book and unleash your hidden potential Most self-help books encourage you to think differently; to think yourself thin, imagine a richer self or to visualize the perfect you. This is difficult, time consuming and often doesn’t work. Drawing on a dazzling array of scientific evidence,
psychologist Richard Wiseman presents a radical new insight that turns conventional self-help on its head: simple physical actions represent the quickest, easiest and most powerful way to instantly change how you think and feel. So don’t just think about changing your life. Do it. Discover the simple idea that changes everything, Lose weight, Stop smoking, Feel instantly younger


Michael Collins & The Civil War
by T. Ryle Dwyer

On 14 April 1922 a group of 200 anti-Treaty IRA men
occupied the Four Courts in Dublin in defiance of the
Provisional Government. Michael Collins, who wanted to avoid civil war at all costs, did not attack them until June 1922, when British pressure forced his hand. This led to the Irish Civil War as fighting broke out in Dublin between the anti-Treaty IRA and the Provisional Government's troops. Under Collins' supervision, the Free State rapidly took control of the capital. In 'Michael Collins and the Civil War', Ryle Dwyer sheds new light on Collins' role in the Civil War, showing how in the weeks and months leading to the campaign he secretly persisted with guerrilla tactics in border areas. This involved not only assassination but also kidnapping and hostage taking. In confronting those tactics on behalf of the British Winston Churchill engaged in similar
behaviour, including killing and hostage-taking. But until now much of this has conveniently been swept under the carpet of history

14/06/2012

The Second World War
by Anthony Beevor

“A magisterial, single-volume history of the greatest conflict the world has ever known by our foremost military historian.”

The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria and ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in Europe appeared completely divorced from the war in the Pacific and China, and yet events on opposite sides of the world had profound effects. Using the most up-to-date scholarship and research, and writing with clarity and compassion, Beevor assembles the whole picture in a gripping narrative that extends from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific, from the snowbound steppe to the North African Desert, to the Burmese jungle, SS Einsatzgruppen in the borderlands, Gulag prisoners drafted into punishment
battalions, and to the unspeakable cruelties of the Sino-Japanese War. Moral choice forms the basis of all human drama, and no other period in history has presented greater dilemmas both for leaders and ordinary people, nor offered such examples of individual and mass tragedy, the corruption of power politics, ideological hypocrisy, the egomania of commanders, betrayal, perversity, self-sacrifice, unbelievable sa**sm and unpredictable kindness. Although filling the broadest canvas on a heroic scale, Beevor's THE SECOND WORLD WAR never loses sight of the fate of the ordinary soldiers and
civilians whose lives were crushed by the titanic forces unleashed in this, the most terrible war in history.

About the Author:
Antony Beevor served as a regular officer in the 11th Hussars in
Germany. He is the author of Crete, which won a Runciman Prize; Paris After the Liberation (written with his wife, Artemis Cooper); Stalingrad, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature; Berlin - The Downfall, which received the first Longman-History Today Award; The Battle for Spain; and, most recently, D-Day which received the RUSI Westminster Medal. His books have appeared in 30 languages and sold five million copies.

11/06/2012

The Second World War
by Anthony Beevor

“A magisterial, single-volume history of the greatest conflict the world has ever known by our foremost military historian.”

The Second World War began in August 1939 on the edge of Manchuria and ended there exactly six years later with the Soviet invasion of northern China. The war in Europe appeared completely divorced from the war in the Pacific and China, and yet events on opposite sides of the world had profound effects. Using the most up-to-date scholarship and research, and writing with clarity and compassion, Beevor assembles the whole picture in a gripping narrative that extends from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific, from the snowbound steppe to the North African Desert, to the Burmese jungle, SS Einsatzgruppen in the borderlands, Gulag prisoners drafted into punishment
battalions, and to the unspeakable cruelties of the Sino-Japanese War. Moral choice forms the basis of all human drama, and no other period in history has presented greater dilemmas both for leaders and ordinary people, nor offered such examples of individual and mass tragedy, the corruption of power politics, ideological hypocrisy, the egomania of commanders, betrayal, perversity, self-sacrifice, unbelievable sa**sm and unpredictable kindness. Although filling the broadest canvas on a heroic scale, Beevor's THE SECOND WORLD WAR never loses sight of the fate of the ordinary soldiers and
civilians whose lives were crushed by the titanic forces unleashed in this, the most terrible war in history.

About the Author:
Antony Beevor served as a regular officer in the 11th Hussars in
Germany. He is the author of Crete, which won a Runciman Prize; Paris After the Liberation (written with his wife, Artemis Cooper); Stalingrad, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature; Berlin - The Downfall, which received the first Longman-History Today Award; The Battle for Spain; and, most recently, D-Day which received the RUSI Westminster Medal. His books have appeared in 30 languages and sold five million copies.