The relationship with saints in Ireland has always straddled a chaotic hinterland between Faith (with a capital and Catholic F) and superstition. The country is full of people who wouldn’t really go to mass, but they wouldn’t dare cross St Anthony either. The respect that Gobnait commands around Baile Bhuirne is probably more relevant around these parts than St Brigid, but the sentiment is the same; both women command a respect and come with traditions that have nothing to do with religion. The Irish psyche has a fondness for this kind of casual, fluid belief system, with a touch of the surreal and unbelievable and pleasantly weird that’s just a little left of reality. It’s pure Father Ted.

The Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez would have recognised Craggy Island, and his masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude is the kind of story that’s slippery and great fun. The long, generational tale can just wash over you while you suspend any disbelief and enjoy the ride. Anyway, with the weather that’s forecast this kind of immersive by-the-fireside storybook-for-adults is well-needed. For a shorter introduction to Marquez’ work, Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a slim novella of a crime everyone saw coming, and yet happens regardless and unavoidably.

The great writer Flann O’Brien inhabits the same kind of surreal landscape as Marquez’ work, and The Third Policeman is great craic. If you’ve a cynical and bored teenager in the house that you want to wrestle a phone from, O’Brien might be the way to do it. The renowned writer Jeannette Winterson, best known for Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is something of a master (mistress?) of the uncanny and cosily weird. Her slim novel Sexing the Cherry recalls the tale of the seven princesses for an adult mind, set in the filthy London of the 1600s.

Another of Winterson’s novels, The Passion, is both historical and fantasy, fun and wise  and surreal, set in the very real and very mysterious city of Venice during the Napoleonic wars. Likewise, Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate is a tale of love and loneliness, interspersed with recipes for Mexican food. The image of the girl, crying as she bakes a cake for her secret love and imbuing that cake with her woes, will resonate with anyone who’s ever tried to bake scones while angry. In the run up to Valentine’s Day, this is a real love story for grownups, but be prepared to be hungry.