What We Are Reading Today: The Border by Diarmaid Ferriter

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Updated 07 September 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: The Border by Diarmaid Ferriter

This book will help you understand why the Brexit issue is so intractable, saying that it has always been the ordinary people of Northern Ireland who have paid the price. They deserve better.

The border has been a topic of dispute for over a century, first in Dublin, Belfast and Westminster and, post Brexit referendum, in Brussels.  Yet, despite the passions of Nationalists and Unionists in the North, neither found deep wells of support in the countries they identified with politically. 

The writer reveals the political, economic, social and cultural consequences of the border in Ireland. The book is a timely intervention by a renowned historian into one of the most misunderstood issues of our time, according to a review on goodreads.com.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘How to Make a Home’

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Updated 15 August 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘How to Make a Home’

  • Roman authors saw infinite practical and symbolic value in houses, and they have much to say about them

Authors: Vitruvius and Guests

The idea that our homes can communicate professional as well as personal identities may seem as new as the work-from-home revolution. But it was second nature to the ancient Romans, for whom the home was in many ways the center of public and private life.

Roman authors saw infinite practical and symbolic value in houses, and they have much to say about them. “How to Make a Home” presents some of the best Roman writings on houses—from buying and selling to designing and decorating.

Edited and elegantly translated by Marden Fitzpatrick Nichols, “How to Make a Home” gathers selections by Cicero, Vitruvius, Seneca, and others, with the original Latin or Greek on facing pages.

These writings reveal the pleasures and pitfalls of the Roman practice of making one’s home a cornerstone of self-expression. While the ideal home enshrined Roman virtues and could make a career.

 


What We Are Reading Today: The Road That Made America by James Dodson

Updated 14 August 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: The Road That Made America by James Dodson

James Dodson’s “The Road That Made America” is a lively, epic account of  the 800-mile-mile long Great Wagon Road that 18th-century American settlers forged from Philadelphia to Georgia.
In time, the Great Wagon Road became America’s first technology highway as people and ideas that traveled down the road shaped the character of the fledgling nation and helped define who we are today.


What We Are Reading Today: Of Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery

Updated 13 August 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: Of Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery

Sy Montgomery’s “Of Time and Turtles” tells of  her curiosity to the wonder and wisdom of our long-lived cohabitants, turtles‚  and through their stories of hope and rescue.

Elegantly blending science, memoir, philosophy, and drawing on cultures from across the globe, this compassionate portrait of injured turtles and their determined rescuers invites us all to slow down and slip into turtle time.


What We Are Reading Today: Strata

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Updated 12 August 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: Strata

  • Strata allows us to observe how the planet has responded to past periods of environmental upheaval, and shows how Earth’s ancient narratives could hold lessons for our present and future

Author: Laura Poppick

Laura Poppick’s “Strata” decodes the epic stories of our planet’s 4.54-billion-year history that are written in strata — ages-old remnants of ancient seafloors, desert dunes, and riverbeds striping landscapes around the world. 

Strata allows us to observe how the planet has responded to past periods of environmental upheaval, and shows how Earth’s ancient narratives could hold lessons for our present and future.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Overstory’

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Updated 12 August 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Overstory’

  • Richard Powers is an American novelist known for his fiction as well as science fiction works

Author: Richard Powers

Published in 2018, “The Overstory” by Richard Powers won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2019.

The novel explores the lives of a group of people and trees, and how they are interconnected, emphasizing the relationship between humans and nature.

In the book, nine characters whose lives were influenced by encounters with trees — either through family history, personal tragedy, science or activism — find their paths crossing.

Their connection to trees and their shared goals lead them to join efforts to advocate for environmental health.

Throughout the story, Powers threads the narrative with themes and concepts such as ecological interdependence, sacrifice and the necessity for conservation, creating a mixture of science, storytelling and environmental ethics.

While the book is a great option for people interested in the environment and natural science, the pacing suffers a bit, despite being well-written. Some readers may struggle to stay captivated by the story.

Richard Powers is an American novelist known for his fiction as well as science fiction works.

Powers has published several works including “Bewilderment,” “Playground” and “The Time of Our Singing.”