Read the World: Ireland

I need to follow my Read the World list for Trinidad and Tobago with another list, because book club is fast approaching, and I’ve been asked to assist with making lists. We’ll project further out into the book club future in the future. Or that’s the plan.

For November, Read the World is reading Ireland.

It’s an easy one—perhaps, for us English speakers, the easiest country to read after England and America. And it’s not just because of the English language thing or even its neighborliness, but because Irish people can write. The Irish style is extremely attractive to me (and to many other readers) and they have a long history of per capita literary genius. Is it in the water? In the shared historical narrative? What?

I could come up with almost no end of ideas for this coming club for myself to read, but I already know I’d like to be a Maggie O’Farrell completest some day, and since I only discovered her a couple-few years ago, I’m going to just read the one that I already have on my TBR shelf at home, which is I Am, I Am, I Am (a memoir). (I have already read Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait and Land, which are the most obvious ones.)

Here are quite a few ideas, from rather old to brand new, from nonfiction to YA, for you:

So Late in the Day or Foster, Claire Keegan (short story)
Land or This Must Be the Place, Maggie O’Farrell (as opposed to Hamnet or The Wedding Portrait, which take place in England and Italy)
Prophet Song, Paul Lynch
Trespasses or Stations or The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, Louise Kennedy
Normal People (or Intermezzo?) or Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney
Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis, Frank McCourt
In the Woods or Faithful Place or The Searcher or The Hunter, Tana French
Circle of Friends, Maeve Binchy
Ulysses, The Dubliners, or The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
Everything in the Country Must or Twist, Colum McCann
The Commitments or Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha or Skippy Dies or The Women Behind the Door or A Star Called Henry, Roddy Doyle
The Guest List, Lucy Foley
Trinity, Leon Uris
Lark Ascending, Silas House
PS, I Love You, Cecelia Ahern
The Henna Wars, Adiba Jaigirdar
Spill Simmer Falter or A Line Made by Walking, Sara Baume
Big Girl Small Town, Michelle Gallen
Diary of a Young Naturalist, Dara McAnulty (nonfiction)
An Affair with my Mother, Caitriona Palmer (memoir)
Constellations, Sinead Gleeson (essays)
The Country Girls, Edna O’Brien
Milkman, Anna Burns
A Ghost in the Throat, Doireann Ni Ghriofa
The Heart’s Invisible Furies, John Boyne
Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe (nonfiction)
The Lock-Up, Snow, The Sea, or The Drowned, or Long Lankin (short stories), John Banville
Nora Webster or The News from Dublin or Long Island, Colm Toibin
Soldier Sailor, Claire Kilroy
The Women on Platform Two, Laura Anthony
The Third Policeman, Flann O’Brien
The Bee Sting or An Evening of Long Goodbyes, Paul Murray
Nesting, Roisin O’Donnell
The Rachel Incident, Caroline O’Donoghue
Dublin Noir, Ken Bruen
The Wonder or The Lotterys Plus One or Landing, Emma Donoghue
All Them Dogs, Djamel White
We Don’t Know Ourselves, Fintan O’Toole (nonfiction)
This Is Happiness or Four Letters of Love, Niall Williams
100 Poems, Seamus Heaney (poetry)
The Ghosts of Rome, Joseph O’Connor
The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook, Parragon Books (cookbook)
Irish Folk and Fairy Tales, W. B. Yeats (short stories)
Fingal O’Reilly, Irish Doctor, Patrick Taylor
Anna Haugh’s Irish Kitchen, Anna Haugh (cookbook)
The Irish Girl, Ashley E. Sweeney
Are You Somebody?, Nuala O’Faolainn (memoir)
The Back of Beyond, James Charles Roy (nonficiton)
How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill (nonfiction)
Ireland: a Concise History, Maire and Conor Cruise O’Brien
O Come Ye Back to Ireland, Niall Williams and Christine Breen (memoir)
Round Ireland with a Fridge, Tony Hawks (travel memoir)
The Bodhran Makers, John B. Keane
Dublin Saga, Edward Rutherford
Finbar’s Hotel, Dermot Bolger
Ireland, Frank Delaney
The Last Prince of Ireland, Morgan Llywelyn
The Banshees of Inisherin, Martin McDonagh
The Alternatives, Caoilinn Hughes
The Queen of Dirt Island, Donal Ryan
Dirty Laundry, Disha Bose
That Old Country Music, Kevin Barry (short stories)
Open, Heaven, Sean Hewitt
Better by Far, Hazel Hayes
The Story of Lucy Gault, Willam Trevor
Too Close to Breathe, Olivia Kiernan
Star of the Sea, Joseph O’Connor
McCarthy’s Bar, Pete McCarthy (memoir)
Amongst Women, John McGahern
At Swim Two Birds, Flann O’Brien
Gulliver’s Travels or A Tale of a Tub, Jonathan Swift
Molloy, Samuel Beckett
Tarry Flynn, Patrick Kavanagh
The Borstal Boy, Brenden Behan
The Plough and the Stars, Sean O’Casey (play)
The Picture of Dorian Gray or Complete Poetry, Oscar Wilde
The Secret World of the Irish Male, Joseph O’Connor
The Butcher Boy, Patrick McCabe
A Sentimental Journey, Laurence Sterne
Irish Writing, Stephen Regan (anthology)
Tales of the Elders of Ireland, anonymous
Dracula, Bram Stoker (well, sorta)
Uncle Silas, Sheridan Le Fanu
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer