Today we have a treat, a book review written by an IGSI member and loyal blog-reader. Enjoy:

"This September I am returning to Ireland for two weeks with three friends, none of whom have previously been to Ireland.  A few months ago, I decided to re-read Ireland by Frank Delaney. What a delightful way to brush up on Irish history.  (OK, historical fiction as told by an itinerant story teller.)  I mentioned this book to the three women who will be joining me on this fabulous adventure and they decided to read it too.  All thumbs up!  I highly recommend Ireland if you have not read it.

I love to read. I can’t sing or play a musical instrument, but I am a very good reader. And I love books by Irish authors. Nuala O’Faolain, Seamus Heaney, James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Colm Tóibín, Colum McCann, Frank McCourt, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, OSCAR WILDE!!!  And, of course, our own F. Scott Fitzgerald.

In recent weeks I have been too busy with family and miscellaneous daily tasks to read. But a few days ago I received email notice that a book I reserved was waiting for me in the library. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, non-fiction.

I really don’t have time to read, so I am reading this well-written, heart-breaking, but fascinating book from bedtime until midnight. I don’t put the book down until it drops on my face when I fall asleep.

Say Nothing is equal parts mystery and the complicated history of the “Troubles” between Republican Catholics and Loyalist Protestants which Mr. Keefe skillfully weaves together. The book opens with a short prologue, “The Treasure Room”.  I don’t want to give anything away so the rest of this is quote from the book’s back cover.  “In December 1972, Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten children, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as the Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the IRA was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville’s children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the garments – with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.”

I highly recommend Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland."