“As a subaltern, you get used to doing pretty well anything. In my brief time I had been called on to command a troop-train, change a baby's nappies, quell a riot of Arab nationalists, manage a football team, take an inventory of buried treasure, and partner a Mother Superior at clock-golf.”

Freshly minted 2nd Lieutenant Dand MacNeill has just been assigned to his first real command: D Platoon of the 2nd Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders, stationed in Tripoli just after the end of WW2. Unfortunately, lurking among the stalwart Scotsmen he is charged with leading is Private MacAuslan, the

A science fiction/cyberpunk thriller set in a dystopian near future about a computer hacker. The book was written in 1992 but the characters access a kind of metaverse with their avatars, so it's obviously way ahead of its time and most likely where Meta /Facebook and the like got the current metaverse idea from. The book is a real page turner with loads of interesting ideas and material covered in it. Recommended.

I have had this book on my bedside table for a while and now I wish I had got around to reading it sooner. To anyone (and this includes me) who tends to think of moss as merely something that you need to scrape off the patio, this book is an eye-opener. Who would have thought that the tiny world of mosses could be so fascinating?
The author is a renowned American botanist based at CUNY whose scientific practice, as a member of the Potawatomi people, is informed by indigenous ecological knowledge and methods. Her work led her to specialise in mosses, studying the many different species and their

Marking the reopening of the Dún Laoghaire Baths and celebrating the 180th anniversary of their original opening, this exhibition is a pictorial celebration of life, work and play in the Baths. From their origins as a private enterprise, through the Edwardian redevelopment by the Urban District Council and covering heydays and dereliction through to the present day. It charts the highs and lows of this much-loved local institution – swimming lessons, sunbathing paradise, childhood freedom, protests, ice creams and fun park. Told through the images and the voices of those who lived, worked and

Marking the reopening of the Dún Laoghaire Baths and celebrating the 180th anniversary of their original opening, this exhibition is a pictorial celebration of life, work and play in the Baths. From their origins as a private enterprise, through the Edwardian redevelopment by the Urban District Council and covering heydays and dereliction through to the present day. It charts the highs and lows of this much-loved local institution – swimming lessons, sunbathing paradise, childhood freedom, protests, ice creams and fun park. Told through the images and the voices of those who lived, worked and