Carlo Gebler has written many novels, along with short stories, plays, memoirs, essays, reviews, biographies and works of narrative history.  As the son of the grande dame of Irish letters Edna O Brien and the writer Ernest Gebler , Carlo has  impeccable literary pedigree, as a lecturer in Trinity College Dublin he has opened the windows of wonder to a legion of students by imparting his knowledge, he discusses,À la recherche du temps perdu by Proust, as being a transformative reading experience .If the past is another country – what happens when we revisit it, one day a year?

Carlo Gébler has done just that. Here is the story of Ireland – from the tail end of the Troubles to the Good Friday agreement, to the glory days of the Celtic Tiger to the recession to Brexit and on to the present, where, it appears, everything we thought we could take for granted is no longer a given.

Drawing from journals he has kept for over four decades, Gébler stitches together days of his life into something bigger than his own lived experiences – a vivid patchwork history of the island over thirty-five years, capturing those sweeping changes in sharp, funny, slantwise pieces that will prompt readers to reflect on the strange process of how we got here.

This intelligent and affectionate compilation, written in Gébler’s sparkling prose, is a joy. Whether read from beginning to end or dipped into, it will appeal to anyone with even a passing interest in the astonishing evolution of our island.