Foreign correspondent Sally Hayden shares her recommended reads

Her Book Club meets Sally Hayden

In the latest edition of the Her Book Club's Recommended Reads, we meet foreign correspondent Sally Hayden.

The author has just released the achingly incredible book This Is Also a Love Story, and I urge you to read it.

Sally Hayden's favourite Irish book

I wouldn't say I have a favourite, but I appreciate the beautiful writing in Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark, even when telling such a tragic story. As a child, I was a huge fan of Marita Conlon-McKenna (she once spoke in my school, and it was the most exciting day)

A book that doesn't get enough attention

Suad Aldarra's I Don't Want to Talk About Home is a must-read on life and love, migration and making a new home somewhere you didn't expect to.

A book every Irish woman should read

Edna O'Brien's Country Girl - this is her memoir, rather than the series of novels that made her famous. Edna lived such a fascinating life, as well as being a wonderful writer. Every woman could take something from this book.

One of the most life-changing books you've ever read

Small Wars Permitting by Christina Lamb. It gave me my first proper insight into life as an international correspondent. I found it inspiring, both in terms of Christina's skill and dedication, but also as a lesson in how fascinating the world is.

This Is Also a Love Story by Sally Hayden

This Is Also a Love Story is one of the most important reads of 2026. It is a book you will regret not picking up.

We live in an era defined by crisis - whether it be war and displacement, or climate collapse and rapidly widening inequality. Acclaimed international correspondent Sally Hayden has spent her career covering some of the darkest moments of our time, and yet even in the face of unimaginable adversity, she's witnessed the love and care of everyday people.

Hayden introduces us to a couple separated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a mother in northeast Nigeria who risks everything to save her daughter from forced marriage to Boko Haram militants. We meet a group of Syrian women searching tirelessly for their missing spouses and children, while launching a call for justice, and learn about letters from the bereaved to the dead, still being written over a decade after the tsunami that devastated Japan.

In stories that crisscross the globe, from Uganda to Lebanon, Rwanda to Iraq, Hayden asks us: what if news were recounted through the actions people take for those they love? Would it become harder to dehumanise those who seem different to us?

Buy This Is Also a Love Story by Sally Hayden here.