Fans of Elizabeth Strout will need no review to have them out purchasing her new offering, Tell me Everything.

A Pulitzer Prize winner, and Booker Prize nominated, Strout is a storyteller of immense quality, and someone who is admired by her peers. Her greatest gift is her ability to express the nuances of human relationships.

Many of the characters in Tell me Everything have appeared before in Strout’s impressive library of work, and it was as far back as 1998, in her first novel, that we were introduced to the town of Shirley Falls in Maine, New England.

The people and landscape of the town have been developed over time, and fans of the writer will feel part of their lives already. Newcomers to her work will want to explore her past work after reading her new volume.

The interweaving of the lives of the characters in Strout’s novels is intricate, but very believable. Nothing seems contrived. Central to this book are a number of happenings.

The development of a friendship between the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton and nursing home resident, and one of the town’s longest inhabitants, Olive Kitteridge, leads to a startling revelation.

The book is described as Bob’s story, that of the town’s lawyer, Bob Burgess, one of the main players in a Strout novel of a decade ago. He has become enmeshed in a murder investigation, and takes on the defence of a lonely, isolated man who has been accused of murdering his mother. He has also fallen into a deep friendship with Lucy Barton.

Along the way we discover that Bob’s now ex-wife Pam had an affair with Lucy’s now reconciled first husband William.

As a child, Bob, while playing with the gearshift in the family’s car, had set it rolling down a hill, killing his father. Much later in life, we discover that it was not Bob, by rather his brother Jim, who caused the fatal accident.

While the brother’s relationship overcomes this reveal, Jim’s son Larry is appalled, leading to family division. This explains why Bob decided to defend the accused in the suspected murder case, because “he had for most of his life thought he had killed his father, and this man had perhaps killed his mother.”

This is a winner from Strout – if you are not a fan already, prepare to become one.

Different

Heaven on Earth, by Patrick Donegall. Published by Nine Elms Books, €30

Patrick Donegall, and the spelling of his surname is important, is a member of what is often termed the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. On the death of his father in 2007, and being the son and heir, he became The Marquess of Donegall.

He has had a number of names during his seven-decade life, including the courtesy title of The Earl of Belfast, but despite these indicating that he might well have roots in the northern half of Ireland, his early childhood was spent exclusively in Co Wexford, where the family’s seat is at Dunbrody Park. It remains the place where he spends half of each year.

The author has published a coffee table volume of stories from his life, an insight sometimes into a world little known to most of us, but has done so with great humour.

His late sister, Chich Fowler, described growing up in Wexford as Heaven on Earth, hence the book’s title, and its further description as “the characters, eccentrics and experiences of growing up in the bottom right-hand corner of the Emerald Isle” explains the rest.

Relaxing

Shakespeare, The Man who Pays the Rent, by Judi Dench with Brendan O’Hea. Published by Michael Joseph, €30

For my recent birthday, a friend gifted me a book, and really, I should have had it in my collection already.

Shakespeare, The Man who Pays the Rent, is simply a treasure trove. With the help of Brendan O’Hea, Dame Judi Dench chronicles every Shakesperean role she has played in a career spanning some 70 years, taking the reader through each play, giving us backstage access to rehearsals and more, and revealing some of the shenanigans that took place.

Interspersed with each of these, she provides additional insights into a variety of topics, from mentors to critics, stage company spirit to rehearsal room etiquette, all delivered with Dame Judi’s unique sense of mischief and humour. The result of a series of conversations she had with O’Hea, you can hear Dame Judi’s voice in every word that you peruse.

This is a book that you do not need to read from cover to cover, though you can, but it is one you will return to again and again.

Classic

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting. Published by Penguin Random House, €14

Something a little different this month. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle is the second book in Hugh Lofting’s much-loved series about a very kind doctor who can talk to animals, but this particular volume is the one that best conveys what he is about.

While the magic of the book’s language is hugely entertaining, the good doctor’s habit of stumbling into adventures that are nothing short of fanciful, aided and abetted by an array of very talkative sidekicks, lifts the story to another level.

Imagine being on escapades with birds and animals with names such as Polynesia the parrot, Jip the dog, Chee-Chee the monkey and Dub-Dub the duck.

Key to the tale is the local cobbler’s son, Tommy Stubbins, and he narrates the story of this epic journey from Puddleby-on-the-Marsh to Spidermonkey Island, a trip that involves a shipwreck, an encounter with the Great Glass Sea Snail, and the solving of the mystery of a great naturalist’s disappearance.

The pleasure of storytelling is encapsulated in this book.