Cork Week 2012

Crosshaven Cork Week 2012 by Annette J Dunlea

             Bewteen July 7th – 13th 2012 the Royal Cork Yacht Club will host Cork Week.Held on a biennial basis at the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Crosshaven, Co. Cork. Cork Week is a Grand Prix sailing event and is renowned, worldwide, for exciting and challenging racing. Boats from all over the world are expected, and this year, entries have already been received from as far away as South Africa and Hong Kong and it promises to be one of the most competitive events yet with the relaxation of the professional sailor rule.Cork Week 2012 will also host the J109 Irish National Championships following the very successful European Championship at Cork Week 2010.However, in addition to top class racing, the fabled on-shore tented village lets all crews interact socially in a fun way which has become one of the main ingredients in the success of Cork Week. The centrepiece of this year’s entertainment line up is “Bodega by the Sea” – which sees Cork’s Club Bodega setting sail down river, bringing with it a motley crew of Ireland’s biggest Bands & DJs. Cork Week will see acts such as Soul Driven, Pontius Pilate & the Naildrivers, The Papa Zittas, Death By Chocolate and some of the country’s best-known DJs.

         Cork Week 2012 Event Chair, Pat Lyons said: “Cork Week comes along every two years and offers an occasion to celebrate all that is best about how we can enjoy the wonderful facilities that our environment has placed on our doorstep. In Cork Harbour, we have a world class maritime playground and by bringing together a sailing event of international quality, the Royal Cork provides an opportunity for both sailors and spectators alike to meet old friends, engage in a top class sailing competition, and enjoy the waterside hospitality and entertainment for which Crosshaven is renowned. They are also are putting the final touches to a great line-up of activities – getting out in the harbour amongst the boats, having interactive sea creature adventures shore side, maritime workshops and a food fair and market in the Club’s Tented Village.”

        A bevy of Cork 1720s are expected for Cork Week and rumour has it that several professional sailors will be making an appearance to take on top Irish competition. In the IRC racing classes, several winning yachts are returning to defend class wins from 2010 including; Paul Kirwan’s Sigma 38, Errislannan, who was jointly awarded Cork’s top award of Boat of the Week last time out. Conor & Denise Phelan’s Kerr 37, Jump Juice will be returning to defend their hard fought class victory in 2010 and a large contingent of Corby Yachts is expected including Richard Goransson’s Inga from Sweden with round the world sailor, Matt Humphries calling tactics and four time Volvo Ocean Race veteran, Richard Mason amongst the crew.Gavin Dean noted that it is   a common misconception that Cork Week is expensive. The entry fee for Cork Week includes your mooring fees and if you want to arrive a few days before the event and stay a couple more after, there will be no additional charge. As far as catering facilities, Anthony McCann and his team have been doing a fantastic job for the club this year and will have a variety of menus available, including breakfast each morning. In the Tented Village, we will also have BBQ food as well as a food court with gourmet fast food and oriental cuisine, all at competitive prices. We are determined to deliver a memorable event. In addition to top class racing, the fabled on-shore craic in the tented village has become one of the main ingredients in the success of Cork Week with some of Ireland’s best bands performing live each evening. Plans include a whale workshop, an aquarium touch tank and other attractions. The festival will also host cultural and artistic flavours of the region including the work of local artists and vendors of local fayre. Meitheal Mara will be sailing to town with their Dragon boats and offering people an opportunity to sail on them.There will be free admission on Saturday and Sunday 7th and 8th July from 11 am to 5pm. RCYC Admiral Peter Deasy said: “We in the Royal Cork are very confident that the support of the people of Cork and in particular, Crosshaven, will insure that Cork Week 2012 will, once again, prove that people are prepared to enjoy their hard earned leisure time in what has always been one of the best sailing, and fun, regattas in Europe.”

 The End

New Title: The Playdate

Title:The Playdate

Author: Louise Millar

• Paperback:352 pages
• Publisher:Pan (26 April 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0330545000
• ISBN-13:978-0330545006
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2.8 cm

Product Description

You leave your kids with a friend. Everyone does it. Until the day it goes wrong.

 

Book Description

Single mother Callie has come to rely heavily on her best friend Suzy. But Callie suspects Suzy’s life isn’t as simple as it seems. It’s time she pulled away – going back to work is just the first step towards rediscovering her old confidence. So why does she keep putting off telling Suzy about her new job? Suzy and Callie live close to each other on a typical cramped, anonymous London street. Neighbours seem to move in, and move on, before you have even learned their names. Callie’s increased sense of alienation leads her to try to befriend a new resident on her street, Debs. But Debs is anxious, odd. You wouldn’t trust her with your child – especially not if you knew anything about her past. A brilliant and chilling evocation of modern life, The Playdate is a real talking-point book for mothers everywhere.

 

About the Author

Louise Millar was brought up in Scotland. She began her journalism career in mainly music and film magazines, working as a sub-editor for Kerrang!, Smash Hits, the NME and Empire. She later moved into features, working as a commissioning editor on women’s magazines. She has written for Marie Claire, Red, Psychologies, Stella (Telegraph magazine), the Independent, the Observer, Glamour, Stylist and Eve. She lives in London with her husband and daughters.

Book Recommendation: Tuesday’s Gone

Title:Tuesday’s Gone

Author: Nicci French

Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Michael Joseph (19 July 2012)
ISBN-10: 0718156951
ISBN-13: 978-0718156954

Product Description
Nicci French, the bestselling author of What to do When Someone Dies and Losing You, returns with the second book in the gripping new series that began with Top Ten Bestseller Blue Monday. Fans of Peter James’ Roy Grace series and Peter Robinson’s DCI Banks series will love central character psychotherapist Frieda Klein, who is consulted on a grisly and seemingly unsolvable crime.

For Frieda Klein the days get longer, the cases darker . . .

Psychotherapist Frieda Klein thought she was done with the police. But once more DCI Karlsson is knocking at her door.

A man’s decomposed body has been found in the flat of Michelle Doyce, a woman trapped in a world of strange mental disorder. The police don’t know who it is, how he got there or what happened – and Michelle can’t tell them. But Karlsson hopes Frieda can get access to the truths buried beneath her confusion.

Painstakingly, Frieda uncovers a possible identity for the corpse: Robert Poole, a jack of all trades and master conman. But the deeper Frieda and Karlsson dig into Poole’s past, the more of his victims they encounter – and the more motives they find for murder. Meanwhile, violent ghosts from Frieda’s own past are returning to threaten her.

Unable to discover quite who is telling the truth and who is lying, they know they are getting closer to a killer. But whoever murdered Poole is determined to stay free – and anyone that gets too close will meet the same fate.

A gritty heroine, a gruesome crime and a terrifying hunt for a psychotic killer, Tuesday’s Gone is not to be missed by fans of psychological thrillers.

‘Nicci French knows just how to play on our worst fears’ Daily Mail

Nicci French is the pseudonym for Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. The couple live in Suffolk and have written twelve other bestselling novels including Beneath the Skin and Blue Monday, the first thrilling instalment in the Frieda Klein series.

About the Author
Nicci French is the pseudonym for the writing partnership of journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. The couple are married and live in Suffolk. There are twelve other bestselling novels by Nicci French, all published by Penguin. Blue Monday was the first thrilling instalment in the Frieda Klein series; this is the second.

New Title: Facing The Torturer

Title: Facing the Torturer: Inside the mind of a war criminal

Author: Francois Bizot

• Hardcover:224 pages
• Publisher:Rider (3 May 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1846042550
• ISBN-13:978-1846042553
• Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.2 x 2 cm

Product Description

In 1971, Francois Bizot was kept prisoner for three months in the Cambodian jungle, accused of being a CIA spy. His Khymer Rouge captor, Comrade Duch, eventually had him freed and it took Bizot decades to realize he owed his life to a man who, later in the Killing Fields regime, was to become one of Pol Pot’s most infamous henchmen. As the head of the Tuol Sleng S-21 jail, Duch personally oversaw the detention, systematic torture and execution of more than 16,000 detainees.

 

Duch’s trial as a war criminal began in Phnom Penh in March 09 and ended in July 2010 amid a blaze of publicity. He was sentenced to a controversial 35 years imprisonment. In the tradition of Gitta Sereny, who sat with Speer in the Nuremberg trials, Bizot attended Duch’s court case and spent time with him in prison, trying to unearth whatever humanity Duch had left. If he was going to talk to anyone, it was Bizot, whom he still referred to as his ‘friend’.

 

‘It would be all too easy,’ says Bizot, ‘if this man was a monster, not a member of the human race. We could use the slogan ‘never again’ and move on. But the deep horror is that this man is normal, that in other circumstances he could have been an effective and well-liked manager, an honest and incorruptible civil servant. Through his very qualities he became a mass murderer. Does that exonerate him from the crimes? Certainly not. But it does force us to question ourselves in a way that is deeply unsettling.’

 

At once a personal essay, a historical and philosophical meditation, and an eye-witness account, Facing the Torturer will join a very short list of important books about man’s personal responsibility in collective crimes.

About the Author

Francois Bizot is an ethnologist who has spent the greater part of his career studying Buddhism. He is the Director of Studies at Ecole Pratique des Hautes-Etudes and holds the chair in Southeast Asian Buddhism at the Sorbonne. He lives in Paris.

 

Book Recommendation: Cave Of Secrets

Title:Cave of Secrets

Author: Morgan Llywelyn

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: O’Brien Press Ltd (16 April 2012)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1847172075
ISBN-13: 978-1847172075
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2.2 cm

Product Description
When Tom feels rejected by his father, he finds a secret second family among the group of smugglers who trade in and around Roaringwater Bay. Though Tom doesn’t know it, his family in the Big House is under huge pressure. His father has had savage losses in business; his mother is always sad and worried, and his sisters have no hopes for a good future. This is seventeenth-century Ireland when cut-throat interests control everybody and everything, and land-grabbing is the order of the day. Friend turns into foe, and loyalty counts for nothing. From his new family, Tom learns all about boats and smuggling — and secret treasure. And then Tom discovers the best-kept secret of all …
About the Author
Historian and novelist Morgan Llywelyn was born in New York City, but after the death of her husband and parents in 1985 returned to Ireland to take up citizenship in the land of her grandparents and make her permanent home there. After making the shortlist for the United States Olympic Team in Dressage in 1975, but not making the team itself, she turned to writing historical novels exploring her Celtic roots. The most successful of these was Lion of Ireland – The Legend of Brian Boru, which was published in 1980 and has sold into the millions of copies. She received the Novel of the Year Award from the National League of American Penwomen for her novel The Horse Goddess as well as the Woman of the Year Award from the Irish-American Heritage Committee for Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish. The latter award was presented to her by Ed Koch, then-mayor of New York City. Morgan is also the author of , the story of Grace O’Malley, told partly through letters from Granuaile to her beloved son. It is a thrilling tale of adventure that brings this unorthodox and inspiring historical figure to life.

New Title: India Rising

Title:India Rising: Tales from a Changing Nation: Travels in Modern India

Author: Oliver Balch

• Paperback:352 pages
• Publisher:Faber and Faber (3 May 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0571259251
• ISBN-13:978-0571259250
• Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm

Product Description

India is on the up. Historically derided as the lumbering elephant of Asia, this vast sub-continent has quickened its pace. The economy is booming. Tens of millions have been pulled out of poverty. Software and service companies abound. Millionaire entrepreneurs are springing up at every turn. Bollywood is going global and Indian expats are flooding back home. What’s more, these changes are occurring within the world’s largest democracy – a far cry from neighbouring China. But who and what lies behind India’s apparent ascendency?

 

In India Rising Oliver Balch takes the voices and stories of everyday Indians and presents a fresh, vivid, highly personalised account of the changes as they are unfolding.Travelling the length and breadth of the country, Balch leads readers off the tourist trail and onto the streets of modern day India. From cricket stadiums and shopping malls to rural schools and shanty towns, the book blends the best of reportage and travel writing to get under the skin of this nation in transition.

 

What emerges is a captivating portrait of a country at a crossroads. Old versus New. Global versus local.India’s march into the twenty-first century is full of tensions and uncertainties. But so too is it brimming with optimism and hope. With over half of its billion plus population under the age of twenty-five, India’s future will be written by its youth. In describing their hopes and exploring their fears, India Rising unpicks what makes this vast nation tick and asks where it’s heading.

 

About the Author

Oliver Balch is a UK freelance journalist specialising in business and world affairs. He work has appeared in a wide range of international publications, including The Guardian, The Financial Times, Conde Nast Traveller and The Traveller. His first book, Viva South America! was shortlisted as ‘Book of the Year’ at the UK Travel Press Awards.

Book Recommendation: Ignorance

Title:Ignorance

Author:Michele Roberts

Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (10 May 2012)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1408816008
ISBN-13: 978-1408816004
Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14 x 2.3 cm

Product Description
After every war there are stories that are locked away like bluebottles in drawers and kept silent. But sometimes the past can return: in the smell of carbolic soap, in whispers darting through a village after mass, in the colour of an undelivered letter. Jeanne Nerin and Marie-Angele Baudry grow up, side by side yet apart, in the village of Ste Madeleine. Marie-Angele is the daughter of the grocer, inflated with ideas of her own piety and rightful place in society. Jeanne’s mother washes clothes for a living. She used to be a Jew until this became too dangerous. Jeanne does not think twice about grasping the slender chances life throws at her. Marie-Angele does not grasp; she aspires to a future of comfort and influence. When war falls out of the sky, along with it tumbles a new, grown-up world. The village must think on its feet, play its part in a game for which no one knows the rules. Not even the dubious hero with ‘business contacts’ who sweeps Marie-Angele off her feet. Not even the reclusive artist living alone with his sensual, red canvases. In these uncertain times, the enemy may be hiding in your garden shed and the truth is all too easily buried under a pyramid of recriminations. Michele Roberts’s new novel is a mesmerising exploration of guilt, faith, desire and judgment, bringing to life a people at war in a way that is at once lyrical and shocking.
About the Author
Michele Roberts is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House, which won the WHSmith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her memoir Paper Houses was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. She has also published poetry and short stories, most recently collected in Mud: Stories of Sex and Love. Half-English and half-French, Michele Roberts lives in London and in the Mayenne, France. She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres.

New Title: The Red House

Title:The Red House

Author:Mark Haddon

• Hardcover:272 pages
• Publisher:Jonathan Cape (10 May 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0224096400
• ISBN-13:978-0224096409
• Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3 cm

Product Description

Family, that slippery word, a star to every wandering bark, and everyone sailing under a different sky.

 

After his mother’s death, Richard, a newly remarried hospital consultant, decides to build bridges with his estranged sister, inviting Angela and her family for a week in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children, a single family and all of them strangers. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks.

 

But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents Angela thought she had. Past and present lovers. Friends, enemies, victims, saviours. And watching over all of them from high on the dark hill, Karen, Angela’s stillborn daughter.

 

The Red House is about the extraordinariness of the ordinary, weaving the words and thoughts of the eight characters together with those fainter, stranger voices – of books and letters and music, of the dead who once inhabited these rooms, of the ageing house itself and the landscape in which it sits.

 

Once again Mark Haddon, bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and A Spot of Bother, has written a novel that is funny, poignant and deeply insightful about human lives.

 

About the Author

Mark Haddon is an author, illustrator and screenwriter who has written fifteen books for children and won two BAFTAs. His bestselling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, was published simultaneously by Jonathan Cape and David Fickling in 2003. It won seventeen literary prizes, including the Whitbread Award. His poetry collection, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea, was published by Picador in 2005, and his last novel, A Spot of Bother, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2006. He lives in Oxford.

Book Recommendation: The Shelter Of Neighbours

Title:The Shelter of Neighbours

Author: Eilis Ni Dhuibhne
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Blackstaff Press Ltd (8 Mar 2012)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0856408867
ISBN-13: 978-0856408861
Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.4 x 2.6 cm
Product Description
New collection of short stories from celebrated author Eilis Ni Dhuibhne.
About the Author
EILIS NI DHUIBHNE was born in Dublin in 1954. She was educated at University College Dublin and has a BA in English and PhD in Irish Folklore. She has worked for many years as a librarian at the National Library of Ireland and is a member of Aosdana. The author of ten novels and collections of short stories, several children’s books, plays, and many scholarly articles and literary reviews, her work includes The Bray House, Eating Women is Not Recommended, and The Dancers Dancing. She has been the recipient of many literary awards, among them the Stewart Parker Award for Drama, the Irish American Cultural Institute Award for Prose, several Oireachtas Awards for Irish language fiction, and three Bisto Awards for novels for young people. Her novel The Dancers Dancing (Blackstaff 1999; new edition 2007) was short listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000

New Title: The Witness

Title:The Witness

Author:Nora Roberts

• Hardcover:496 pages
• Publisher:Piatkus (17 April 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0749955112
• ISBN-13:978-0749955113
• Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.4 x 4.6 cm

Product Description

Nora Roberts – the world’s greatest storyteller.

 

Abigail Lowery has a dark and terrifying secret. Aged just sixteen, she witnessed a shocking mafia murder. Narrowly escaping with her life, she was forced to leave her old identity – even her real name – behind for good.

 

Fifteen years later Abigail is still hiding from the world – a semi-recluse in the quiet, rural town of Bickford, Arkansas. She has convinced herself that this is all she needs: peace, safety… and her faithful guard dog Bert. Perhaps now, at last, she can stop running.

 

But Brooks Gleason, the local chief of police, has other ideas. Abigail intrigues him – and he’d like nothing better than to break through the walls she has built around herself. His persistence and determination to uncover the truth is unsettling, exciting – and dangerous. One way or another, it will change both their lives for ever.

 

About the Author

Nora Roberts is the number one New York Times bestseller of more than 190 novels. With more than 400 million copies of her books in print, Nora Roberts is indisputably the most celebrated women’s fiction writer today. She has achieved numerous top five bestsellers in the UK, including number one for Savour the Moment, and is a Sunday Times hardback bestseller writing as J. D. Robb.

Book Recommendation: The Innocent

Title:The Innocent

Author: David Baldacci

• Format:Kindle Edition  also available in hdk
• File Size:1029 KB
• Print Length:433 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN:0446572993
• Publisher:Pan (26 April 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
• LanguageEnglish
• ASIN:B007L24T52
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled

Product Description

A hitman with a mission. But which side is he on? Freelance hitman, Will Robie, has a mission which takes him first to Edinburgh and then to Tangier. His task is to eliminate suspected enemies of the US government. But back in DC, when government employee and mother of two, Denise Tamaron, is detailed as his next target, Robie fails to pull the trigger. She’s an unlikely victim, and why does she pose a threat to national security? Having failed in his mission, Robie needs to leave the scene fast. But it seems that he is not the only one who is on the run and in danger. On his escape from the city, he saves a young teenage girl from an unknown killer. She’s too scared to reveal her true identity and why, if indeed she knows, there are those who want her dead. The police investigating the deaths start to take an interest in Robie. And he’s particularly attracting the attention of a tenacious female investigator who believes the two cases may be connected. Robie finds himself a fugitive in a dangerous position. Does he need to change sides to save lives – including his own?

About the Author

David Baldacci is a worldwide bestselling novelist. With his books published in over 45 different languages and in more than 80 countries, and with over 110 million copies in print, he is one of the world’s favourite storytellers. His family foundation, the Wish You Well Foundation, a non-profit organization, works to eliminate illiteracy across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, he invites you to visit him at www.DavidBaldacci.com, and his foundation at www.WishYouWellFoundation.org, and to look into its programme to spread books across America at www.FeedingBodyandMind.com.

 

New Title: This Is How It Ends

Title: This Is How It Ends

Author: Kathleen MacMahon

• Hardcover:416 pages
• Publisher:Sphere (24 May 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1847445462
• ISBN-13:978-1847445469
• Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.8 x 4 cm

Product Description

Ireland . . .

America . . .

Family secrets . . .

Laughter . . .

Tragedy . . .

Swimming . . .

Dogs . . .

Big beaches . . .

Loneliness . . .

 

A story of unexpected,life-changing love

About the Author

Kathleen MacMahon is an award-winning television journalist with Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE, where she reports on the major international stories. The grand-daughter of the distinguished short story writer Mary Lavin, Kathleen lives in Dublin with her husband and twin daughters. THIS IS HOW IT ENDS is her first novel. Visit www.kathleenmacmahon.com

 

Book Recommendation: Red Mist

Title:Red Mist

Author:Patricia Cornwell

Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown; First Edition edition (24 Nov 2011)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1408702320
ISBN-13: 978-1408702321
Product Dimensions: 16.3 x 4.2 x 24.2 cm
Product Description
Kay Scarpetta has arranged to meet an inmate at the high-security Georgia Prison for Women. The prisoner is a convicted sex offender and the mother of a vicious and diabolically brilliant killer.
Against advice, Scarpetta is determined to hear this woman out – she believes she may hold some answers to the murder of her former deputy. But soon she finds connections to a string of grisly killings, including the slaughter of a Savannah family years earlier. She can see a pattern to these killings, but who is behind them and why?

As she learns more, Scarpetta is compelled to conclude that this is only the beginning of something far more destructive: a terrifying terrain of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale. And she is the only one who can stop it…

About the Author
Patricia Cornwell’s first novel, Postmortem, was published in 1990 and won five international awards. Her Scarpetta novels have since become Number One bestsellers throughout the world.

New Title: Me And My Sisters

Title: Me and My Sisters

Author: Sinead Moriarty

• Paperback:464 pages
• Publisher:Penguin (26 April 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0241950589
• ISBN-13:978-0241950586
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 3.3 cm

Product Description

There’s more than one way of being a modern woman, not that the Devlin sisters would admit it …

 

Harassed mum Julie used to be the easy-going one, but now she is struggling to keep sane. She needs support, but how could her sisters understand? After all, their lives are perfect.

 

One drunken mistake is jeopardising everything lawyer Louise has worked so hard for. For a control freak like her, being out of control is terrifying. Despite herself, she too needs her sisters.

 

And gorgeous Sophie’s perfect designer lifestyle is falling apart at the seams. She can hardly bring herself to tell the other two the trouble she’s in.

 

The Devlin sisters think they have little in common. They might just be in for some big surprises …

 

About the Author

Number one bestselling author Sinéad Moriarty lives in Dublin with her husband and their three children. Me and My Sisters is her seventh novel.

Book Recommendation: Solace

Title: Solace

Author: Belinda McKeon

• Hardcover:352 pages
• Publisher:Picador (5 Aug 2011)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0330529846
• ISBN-13:978-0330529846
• Product Dimensions: 22 x 14.2 x 3.8 cm

Product Description

As tender as it is heartbreaking, a brilliant debut from an exciting new voice in Irish fiction

 

Book Description

Mark Casey has left home, the rural Irish community where his family has farmed the same land for generations, to study for a doctorate in Dublin, a vibrant, contemporary city full of possibility. To his father, Tom, who needs help baling the hay and ploughing the fields, Mark’s pursuit isn’t work at all, and indeed Mark finds himself whiling away his time with pubs and parties. His is a life without focus or responsibility, until he meets Joanne Lynch, a trainee solicitor whom he finds irresistible. Joanne too has a past to escape from and for a brief time she and Mark share the chaos and rapture of a new love affair, until the lightning strike of tragedy changes everything. Solace is a work to be admired for its spare, intense lyricism, its range, and its deeply compassionate portrayal of life as it is lived now. ‘An elegant, consuming and richly inspired novel. A superb debut. This one will last’ Colum McCann ‘A novel of quiet power, filled with moments of carefully-told truth . . . this book will appeal to readers both young and old’ Colm Tóibín ‘A story of clear-eyed compassion and quiet intelligence’ Anne Enright

About the Author

Belinda McKeon, an award-winning playwright, was born in Ireland in 1979. She studied literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and is a contributor to the Irish Times. McKeon has an MFA from Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

 

Fair Deal Review

Department of Health Fair Deal Review By Annette J Dunlea

Published In The Carrigdhoun Newspaper 26th May 2012 p.11

            The purpose of the Scheme is to provide financial support for people assessed as needing long-term nursing home care. The scheme is founded on the core principles that long-term care should be affordable and that a person should receive the same level of State support whether they choose a public, voluntary or private nursing home. Since the 27th October 2009, the Nursing Homes Support Scheme is the means of accessing long-term nursing home care for all new entrants.Under the Nursing Homes Support Scheme, you will make a contribution towards the cost of your care and the State will pay the balance, whether the nursing home is public, private or voluntary.The HSE administers the Fair Deal Scheme within the resources available and in line with the Nursing Home Support Scheme legislation. Applicants cannot avail of State funding for a nursing home place prior to receiving approval of their Fair Deal application.As the third anniversary of the Fair Deal approaches in October it is important that the review looks at the efficiency of the application process. Department of Health guidelines refer to a turn-around time of 40 days but average times quoted by the Department have ranged from 28 days in January 2012 to 84 days in October 2011! The terms of reference are: to examine the ongoing sustainability of the scheme; the relative costs of public versus private provision; the effectiveness of current methods of negotiating prices in private and setting prices in public nursing homes; and the balance of funding between residential and community care.

            Attempts to reduce the costs of the Fair Deal nursing home scheme are being hampered by long-running contracts with private nursing homes, some of which do not expire until 2016.The NTPF had adopted a policy of entering longer-term contracts with homes in 2010. More than 20 contracts currently in hand will not expire until 2016; 35 contracts will run out in late 2015; 71 contracts expire in 2014; and almost 100 will end next year.The fees negotiated with the private and voluntary nursing homes range from €650 to €1,291 per patient per week. The variation can be attributed to factors including level of care, location and whether rooms are single or shared. The most expensive homes are in Dublin, Kildare and Cork.A spokesman for the Minister for Health said recently that since the Minister indicated he wanted downward renegotiation of prices, “approximately 70” private nursing homes reduced prices. “This includes homes where the contract was up for renewal and in some cases homes where the contract has some time yet to run,” he said.There was a “rolling process of negotiation” and the  was making clear to nursing home providers that “the best possible value must be achieved for the taxpayers in the context of the current economic climate”. The review needs to look at different types of accommodation for older people and at the mechanism used to determine whether or not an older person should be in a nursing home.”Where a person does not get a residential bed they should be offered home care packages, which is not currently being done.The review needs to address this so that the scheme at least meets the basic needs of residents.”Of concern the high cost of fair deal beds in the public sector, beds are 40% more expensive than the private sector!

          CEO of ALONE Seán Moynihan stated, “We’re glad to hear the announcement by Minister Lynch that she intends a review of the Fair Deal Nursing Home scheme, as our experience is proving to us that the current method of operation is quite simply inefficient, and not providing the service required. We’re keen to see a speedy, thorough review, and to have positive changes implemented at the earliest possible stage. We at ALONE are particularly keen to see a greater shift towards supportive housing models in the community which maximise independence, and provide value for money. The cost of provision of nursing home care is extremely expensive, and we’d like to see some follow‐through on the Minister for Health’ repeated statements that care provision in people’ own homes is the preferred option. It is also a significantly less expensive option. ”He continued, “he vital thing is that home care packages and home help hours are fully supported by the government, and not cut. In January, it was proposed that home care hours would be reduced by an estimated 500,000 hours, which would have a significant impact on service provision. If the government is considering restructuring the Fair Deal scheme with a greater emphasis on home care, then an appropriate level of commitment must be made to the home care model.” “Our other concern,” he concluded, “s that the current Fair Deal scheme is not being implemented as planned, in terms of how applicants are being assessed. It is our experience that the current Care Needs Assessment is used mainly to decide whether or not someone should be placed in long‐term care. Where it is decided that their care needs might be better managed with a home care support package, this support is not available.

          Age Action called on both Minister Lynch and Minister Reilly to address this situation as a matter of urgency, and we hope that the review of the Fair Deal Scheme will result in a resolution of this unacceptable situation, with better training for assessment staff and consistency and equal access to services for all.”Age Action welcomes the fact that the Fair Deal nursing home support scheme is being reviewed this year, but warned that the review must be broad ranging and go beyond just the financial aspects of the scheme. “We welcome the fact that the Minister for Older People, Kathleen Lynch, has questioned the feasibility of continuing with the charge on an older person’s home as part of the funding arrangement for a nursing home bed, given the small take-up among older people of that element of the scheme by older people and their families, and the administrative cost of running it,” Age Action spokesman Eamon Timmins said. The national older people’s charity also agrees with Minister’s analysis that the review needs to look at other ways of keeping people in their communities and the options of other types of accommodation, apart from nursing homes. Age Action believes the review must also examine how effective the Fair Deal has been in meeting the needs of nursing home residents who have signed up for the scheme.  “Despite the considerable financial commitment made by nursing home residents and their families as part of the Fair Deal, some have found that the scheme does not cover issues such as incontinence wear, specialized wheelchairs or physiotherapy,” Mr. Timmins said.  “The review needs to address this so that the scheme at least meets the basic needs of residents.” Age Action believes that that nursing home residents, their families and advocacy organizations working with them are consulted as part of the review process. Do people understand the scheme, what it covers and what to do if there is questionable charging?  How many people are going to their first choice nursing home? UK research has shown that many patients actively or passively relinquished their involvement in the process of discharge planning  because of the perceived expertise of others and also feelings of disempowerment linked to poor health, low mood, dependency, lack of information and the intricacies of discharge planning processes for complex needs. Are these issues relevant in Ireland and, if so, how can the Fair Deal scheme be improved?

   The End

New Title: Islanders

Title: Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire

Author: Nicholas Thomas

• Hardcover:356 pages
• Publisher:Yale University Press (27 Oct 2010)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0300124384
• ISBN-13:978-0300124385
• Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3.6 cm

Product Description

This compelling book explores the lived experience of empire in the Pacific, the last region to be contacted and colonized by Europeans following the great voyages of Captain Cook. Unlike conventional accounts that emphasize confrontation and the destruction of indigenous cultures, Islanders reveals there was gain as well as loss, survival as well as suffering, and invention as well as exploitation. Empowered by imaginative research in obscure archives and collections, Thomas rediscovers a rich and surprising history of encounters, not only between Islanders and Europeans, but among Islanders, brought together in new ways by explorers, missionaries and colonists. He tells the story of the making of empire, not through an impersonal survey, but through vivid stories of the lives of men and women – some visionary, some vicious, and some just eccentric – and through sensuous evocation of seascapes and landscapes of the Pacific. A fascinating re-creation of an Oceanic world, Islanders offers a new paradigm, not only for histories of the Pacific, but for understandings of cultural contact everywhere.

 

About the Author

Nicholas Thomas is director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and professor of historical anthropology, at Cambridge University, and has travelled widely in the Pacific. Among his books is Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook.

Book Recommendation: Stolen Souls

 

 

Title:Stolen Souls

Author: Stuart Neville

• Hardcover:320 pages
• Publisher:Harvill Secker (26 Jan 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:184655599X
• ISBN-13:978-1846555992
• Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 16.3 x 3.6 cm

Product Description

It is snowing, she’s barefoot, but Galya runs. Her captors are close behind her, and she won’t go back there, no matter what. Tricked into coming to Belfast with the offer of a good job, all she wants now is to get back home. Her only hope is a man who gave her a cross and a phone number, telling her to call if she escaped. She puts herself at his mercy, knowing she has nowhere else to turn.

Detective Inspector Jack Lennon wants a quiet Christmas with his daughter. When an apparent turf war between rival gangs leaves a string of bodies across the city, he knows he won’t get it. As Lennon digs deeper he discovers the truth is far more threatening. Soon he is locked in a deadly race with two very different killers.

 

About the Author

Stuart Neville’s first novel, The Twelve, was one of the most critically acclaimed crime debuts of recent years. It was selected as one of the top crime novels of the year by the New York Times and it won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for best thriller. His second novel, Collusion, garnered widespread praise and confirmed his position as one of the most exciting new crime authors writing today. www.stuartneville.com

 

 

New Title: The Forced Redundancy Film Club

Title:The Forced Redundancy Film Club

Author: Brian Finnegan

• Paperback:400 pages
• Publisher:Hachette Books Ireland (5 April 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1444742914
• ISBN-13:978-1444742916
• Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 3.2 cm

Product Description

Five colleagues. One dreadful day. And the biggest shock of her life for high-flying career girl Katherine Casey, who’d believed she was safe from the job losses coming to Qwertec Solutions.
The mood is sombre as she and devastated ex-colleagues gather in the pub. But a few drinks later, with the discovery of a shared passion for the silver screen, things begin to look up. And the Forced Redundancy Film Club is born.
Over a year, Katherine, along with office oddball Alice, stressed out mother-of-three Lisa, professional sorrow-drowner Martin and cheating-heart Jamie meet up each month to watch their favourite classic films.
As they journey through Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Wizard of Oz, Brokeback Mountain and many others, each faces their own personal challenges: from negative-equity hell to heartache, loneliness, toddler-strife – and the wrath of a certain bunny boiler. And each finds comfort in the one place where they’re guaranteed a happy ending.
But will the dreams they dare to dream every really come true? Only time will tell…

 

About the Author

Brian Finnegan is a journalist and well-known gay rights commentator and activist. He is editor of GCN. Originally from Sligo, he lives in Dublin. He is a father of one.

Book Recommendation: The Lifeboat

Title: The Lifeboat

Author: Charlotte Rogan

• Hardcover:288 pages
• Publisher:Virago (29 Mar 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1844087522
• ISBN-13:978-1844087525
• Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.8 x 3.2 cm

Product Description

I was to stand trial for my life. I was twenty-two years old. I had been married for ten weeks and a widow for six.

 

In the summer of 1914, the Empress Alexandra, a magnificent ocean liner, suffers a mysterious explosion on its voyage from London to New York City. On board are Henry Winter, a rich banker, and his young new wife, Grace. Somehow, Henry manages to secure a place in a lifeboat for Grace. But the survivors quickly realize it is over capacity and could sink at any moment. For any to live, some must die.

 

As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace watches and waits. She is a woman who has learned the value of patience – her journey to a life of glittering privilege has been far from straightforward. Now, she knows, it is in jeopardy, and her very survival is at stake.

 

Over the course of three perilous weeks, the passengers on the lifeboat plot, scheme, gossip and console one another while sitting inches apart. Their deepest beliefs about goodness, humanity and God are tested to the limit as they begin to discover what they will do in order to survive.

 

The Lifeboat is a page-turning story of moral dilemmas, and also the moving and haunting story of Grace, a woman as unforgettable and complicated as the story she recounts.

About the Author

Charlotte Rogan graduated from Princeton in 1975. She taught herself to write between working at various jobs and bringing up triplets. Her childhood vacations with a family of sailors provided inspiration for THE LIFEBOAT, her first novel. She lives in Connecticut, US.