A soul longs for Sligo

The crowning triumph of the erstwhile thick Mick is that now it's cool to be Irish. England's homegrown neo-Paddies may eschew spuds and sprouts for prosciutto-pouches from Alistair Little, but if two autumn memoirs are any indication, the grass is always greener on the other side of the Irish Sea.

Have and have not

Jonathan Jones on Jodi Hauptman's life of Joseph Cornell and the desires you can't quite squeeze into a box

Laurels and canons

It hasn't been a blazing year for poetry - but Robert Potts finds much to admire in Oliver Reynolds, Don Paterson and J H Prynne

Let’s do the timewarp

There's a new Best of the Mavericks compilation launched to commemorate the "first decade of Maverick music", which prompts the alarming thought that they may be planning a second, or even a third. The group have enjoyed some big hits in Britain, notably last year's single Dance the Night Away, and they even managed to fill the Albert Hall for six nights, but a quick trot through the Best Of album reaffirms that they'll always be a Florida covers band who got lucky.

BATS

Downed straight after the office Christmas party, this high-spirited spoof on Bram Stoker's Dracula might seem pretty amusing. Taken stone-cold sober it is more bemusing than funny.