Jaywalking with the Irish by David Monagan

This beautiful story about life in a strange land blossomed from American journalist David Monagan's fascination with the Irish.

He and his wife Jamie pack up their Connecticut home (and their three children) and return to his ancestral home in Cork.

Monagan had studied in Dublin and revisited the country occasionally, and his passion remains at the surface of his memoir, even though the Ireland of the present often bears little resemblance to that of his memories.

With a light touch, Monagan tells of enrolling his children in school, watching his wife struggle to find work, trying to blend in at the local pub and navigating the complicated bureaucracy.

The story grows dark when his family finds itself at the mercy of teenage hoodlums. It floats from incident to incident until midway through, when Monagan decides he wants to launch a regional magazine.

His book is an honest, heartfelt, penetrating portrait of a contemporary Ireland.