A sneak preview of this Saturday’s books pages in The Irish Times

There's a particularly strong line-up of non-fiction reviews in The Irish Times on Saturday, February 14th.

Diarmaid Ferriter reviews Seán Boyne's Emmet Dalton: Somme Soldier, Irish General, Film Pioneer, remarkably the first biography of a remarkable Irishman. Eibhear Walshe looks at Paul Delaney's Seán O'Faoláin: Literature, Inheritance and the 1930s.

Lara Marlowe reviews The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs by Andrew Hussey, posing the question: are Islamist atrocities the sins of France's colonial fathers coming back to haunt it?

Michael Foley reviews Periodicals and Journalism in Twentieth-Century Ireland, a collection of essays edited by Mark O'Brien and Felix Larkin.

Caitriona Clear reviews The Mount Street Club, edited by Peter Somerville-Large, Mary E Daly and Colin Murphy.

Tom O'Connor examines Julien Mercille's The Political Economy and Media Coverage of the European Economic Crisis: The Case of Ireland.

On the fiction front, Eileen Battersby considers A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler; Sarah Gilmartin reviews A Shadow in the Yard by former TD Liz McManus; and Sinéad Gleeson reviews, in 365 words, of course, 365 Stories by James Robertson.

Our crime correspondent Declan Burke reviews Paula Hawkins's debut The Girl on the Train; Rob Kitchin's Stumped; Harri Nykänen's Behind God's Back; and Celeste Ing's debut Everything I Never Told You.

Maureen Kennelly limbers up to tackle poetry in motion: the links between art and sport, and there’s also a new poem by Leanne O’Sullivan.