“A ROOM without books is like a body without a soul,” said the Roman writer Cicero, and a book is never a bad Christmas present, so here are a few suggestions for last minute gift buyers.
For those of you who wish to unleash your inner Sheldon Cooper there is the Star Wars Millennium Falcon Owners Workshop Manual from Haynes Publishing.
This book contains all you ever wanted or needed to know about the workings of Hans Solo’s iconic, freight-running, spacecraft.
In true Haynes how-to style, the reader is taken through how to fly the Falcon as well as the technology behind hyperspace travel, special manoeuvres, combat techniques, and using the hyperdrive.
The controls in the iconic cockpit, which juts out on one side of the starship, are rendered in beautiful colour artwork to describe in detail the Millennium Falcon’s operating systems. Weapons systems are outlined offering intelligence that would have proved invaluable to the Imperial Navy. The crew quarters are revealed in detail, complete with recess bunks, medical kits, and even Chewbacca’s hologram table.
The book is written by Ryder Windham, an authority on Star Wars, having authored more than 50 books on the subject.
Yes, this is the ultimate Star Wars’ geek and nerd must-have and as that kind of Star Wars fan myself I welcome this publication. It’s a pure indulgence and hey, that is what Christmas is all about.
Turning to books of Irish interest there is also the Plight of the Wild Geese graphic novel from Moccu Press. The novel is a collaboration between Clonmel writer and publisher Dermot Poyntz, and Waterford graphic designer and illustrator Lee Grace.
It retells the struggle between the Irish Jacobite army, commanded by the French Marshal, St Ruth, and the Williamite forces under General Godart de Ginkel, as well as the initial exploits of the ‘Fighting Irish’ abroad.
From a historical graphic novel to a book about more recent political events, A Deal With the Devil - The Green Party in Government by The Irish Times journalist Mary Minihan and published by Maverick House.
The book examines the party’s ill-fated decision to go into coalition with Fianna Fáil (and what was left of the PDs ) in 2007 only to find itself, one year later, landed in the greatest financial crisis since the Depression.
After that it was all downhill - the 2009 local elections, the worsening economic situation despite Brian Lenihan’s bluster that “we have turned a corner”, threats to pull out of Government, and the party’s massacre at the polls in February.
