Best books… Ruth Dudley Edwards

The historian and novelist Ruth Dudley Edwards picks her favourite books about political violence and crime. Her new book, The Seven: the Lives and Legacies of the Founding Fathers of the Irish Republic, is published by Oneworld at £18.99

Unhappy the Land: The Most Oppressed People Ever, the Irish? by Liam Kennedy, 2015 (Merrion Press £19.99). While debating the morality of the Irish 1916 rebellion, I’ve found inspiration in these witty and iconoclastic reflections on Irish history by a friend whose distinguishing features include deep humanity and mischievous enjoyment in dispatching sacred cows to the slaughterhouse. James Connolly: My Search for the Man, the Myth and His Legacy by Sean O’Callaghan, 2015 (Century £18.99). This is by another friend who – inspired by the rhetoric of James Connolly (a Marxist executed after the 1916 rising) – joined the IRA at 15, and later devoted himself to destroying it. Here he writes about violent extremism and why ordinary people become True Believers. J: A Novel by Howard Jacobson, 2014 (Vintage £8.99). A…

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The Week United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, V. 1076

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