There is no better present to find under the tree than a book (an indisputable fact, according to Dymphna!)
This Christmas, The Big Breakfast Blaa and The Book Centre, Waterford have teamed up to find the best books for that perfect Christmas gift.
Crack the spine, inhale that new book smell, and pour a cuppa of your choice, because it is Dymphna's Book Club, The Festive Edition!
Colourful Memories of Waterford, by Joe Evans
Nobody does Déise nostalgia like Joe Evans and on foot of the roaring success of Joe's first four volumes, he has launched Colourful Memories of Waterford- Volume 1.
This vibrant continuation of the previous volumes offers Waterford memories in full colour.
This year, some of the treasures contained within include some of the carefully curated archives of photographer Michael.
As he travelled across the region on his bicycle, he immortalised faces, places, and special people.
Always a firm favourite as a Déise stocking filler- Joe Evans' brand new book is set to be top of this year's wish-list.
Charlie and the Christmas Factory and other stories
The world of Roald Dahl shaped our childhoods, homes, and we grew up with Charlie Bucket, Matilda, Fantastic Mr. Fox and so many others.
In a newly reimagined telling, the adventures of his most beloved characters continues.
Charlie Bucket is celebrating Christmas at the Chocolate Factory.
Matilda hopes she won't be on Santa's Naughty List, and the BFG has a 'whoopsy-whiffling' festive dream.
This is *technically* a children's book but it feeds the young child in us all this Christmas.
A Life Among the Dead- Stories from an Irish Funeral Director by David McGowan
When death is a way of life . . .
In A Life Among the Dead, David McGowan, subject of the Award-winning Netflix documentary The Funeral Director, guides us through the business, and the unexplained elements of death.
Alongside exploring the unique approach of Irish culture when it comes to grief and death, David seeks to demystify the process of dying and what happens to the body afterward.
Nobody does funerals and wakes quite like the Irish, and on that tone, the book is soaked in witty recollections, stories from funerals, and serves a proper tonic.
Poignant, humorous and educational, this is an account of a life lived with purpose in the service of the dead.
As unusual a topic as it sounds for Christmas, this is absolutely perfect reading material for this Christmas.
Fire by John Boyne
On the face of it, Freya lives a gilded existence, dancing solely to her own tune.
She has all the trappings of wealth and privilege, a responsible job as a surgeon specialising in skin grafts, a beautiful flat in a sought-after development, and a flash car.
But it wasnt always like this.
Hers is a life founded on darkness.
Did what happened to Freya as a child one fateful summer influence the adult she would become - or was she always destined to be that person?
Was she born with cruelty in her heart or did something force it into being?
In Fire, John Boyne takes the reader on a chilling, uncomfortable but utterly compelling psychological journey to the epicentre of the human condition, asking the age-old question: nurture - or nature?
In previous months, we have chosen John Boyne's Earth, as well as Water as part of the series.
They are bitesized, intense, well-written and will please anyone who enjoys a narrative that threads through multiple books.
I Loved Him From The Day He Died by Michael Harding
A stunning new book from the number one bestselling, award-winning author of All the Things Left Unsaid and Staring at Lakes.
To mark his 70th birthday Michael Harding travelled to Spain and walked the Camino de Santiago.
Yet, as he set off on his pilgrimage, he found he wasn't alone.
Accompanying him on his 126-kilometre walk in the heat of the Spanish sun was the ghost of his long-dead father, a distant and aloof figure whom he lost when he was only twenty-two years old.
Here, with searing honesty and beautifully wrought prose, Harding examines how this man, who had died almost half a century ago, could have had such a profound effect on the writer's life.
From the Ireland of his youth, to the time of his father's death, I Loved Him From The Day He Died is a heartfelt examination of love, forgiveness and letting go.
