Looking for something new to read for World Book Day? These are our staff faves
L-R: Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, Jilly Cooper's Riders
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In the early to mid-1990s, my parents would do their 'big shop' in Dunnes on the North Main Street and I would tag along to browse the bookshelves and leaf through the pages in the children's section. One week my pleading worked and they bought me a book of my own in the shopping centre: The Little Lost Hen and Other Stories.Â
I was only about four or five and they assumed it would be too advanced for me but I inhaled it like I was Johnny Five needing input and thus a weekly tradition was formed. My love of reading fiction started with that first hardback book and the pride I felt in being able to guide myself through the magical stories.
Various sports books - both encyclopaedic (the history of Manchester United) and fictional - and the Harry Potter series helped me on my reading journey but earlier than that I remember devouring Enid Blyton's Famous Five series and Roald Dahl's various offerings. I probably didn't even understand some of what was going on in the latter's outlandish work, but the likes of the Twits, Danny the Champion of the World, and the BFG all stand out. They opened a whole new world for me.
We all need the lighter side of life right now, and this book is it: laugh-out-loud fun at bedtime. Written for younger kids in mind, my older children still love joining in the divilment. It starts, âThere's something very important that I need you to remember. When I say Ooh, you say Ahh. Let's try itâ. There are other rules as you read. When you see a picture of a cloud, you shout your name out. You see an ant and you shout 'underpants!"'.Â
The madcap antics go on until the end, and youâre rubbing your head, screeching âunderpants!â at top of your lungs. If youâve got young kids, you need to buy this book now. In fact, forget the kids. Buy it anyway and get ready to scream, and shout, and have some fun again.
I was that geeky child who always had her head in a Darren Shan book growing up. There was just something so addicting about all of those goblins and ghouls, transporting one far from a west Cork playground. Prior to that, Dr Seuss was my man.
Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are is a standard issue in my own extended family. Also, I don't think we yet appreciate the full significance of what JK Rowling did with Harry Potter - she got so many kids into books who would otherwise have been lost to screens. Â
I remember getting the entire series of Narnia for Christmas just year and thinking "I'm not going to speak to anyone until I've gotten through this." CS Lewis transported me to worlds I couldn't even dream of. I read them recently to my kids, and was enthralled, still.
My mam got me this at the secondhand bookshop that used to be on the Main Street in Mallow, I think. I'm not quite sure if it was intended for younger kids, but there I was, anyway. The inspiration for a Freddie White song featuring Phil Lynott on backing vocals shortly before his passing, it's a revenge adventure that sees the elder child of a large family of rats head into the big, wide world to rally a posse and get revenge for the savaging of his aul' lad by a rat catcher.Â
Two things stick out to me here - I do remember, even then, some of the broader stereotypes involved being from another time, and maybe that's for the best. With the benefit of hindsight, though, it was also an early nudge into the realm of Irish music - my mam had to tell me who Dr. Strangely Strange were after I read illustrator Tim Booth's bio at the end.
I've read this with my three boys over and over again, and they grew out of it before I did. Kids these days. The illustrations are divine and detailed, recreating a world that feels gone forever, where babies get bathed in front of a fire, and everyone's allowed eat white bread.Â
The little touches, like the mum's handbag next to her as she snoozes in the chair, just gives me joy. All mothers of a certain generation keep their handbags close by. This book also makes me feel better about the clutter in my house. And for that I'll be forever grateful.
The Little House on the Prairie series is just super - and simultaneously a victim of one of the worst adaptation con-jobs ever. The 150-plus years old tales of the hardships of frontier life in Wisconsin, Kansas, and Minnesota are worlds apart from the cutesy, sanitised TV series. The books have a grit and sense of adventure that just didnât make it to the television series.Â
They fought wolves, built houses, made food out of stuff I hadnât even heard of as a child - and to an extent they are a documentation of a fascinating stage in the development of a nation. And, okay, okay, that little Nellie Oleson was the ultimate love-to-hate-her character for a child, wasnât she?
I know, it usually screams 'I studied English in college', but for me, this love affair began in late primary school. Every time I open Jane Eyre I find myself reading a different novel. Is it a gothic romance? A thriller? A feminist text? It is all that and more, but above all, it is still pure entertainment and escapism over 170 years after its first publication.
I promise. Iâm not being lazy here. Wuthering Heights was on my Inter Cert syllabus and three decades later, I still reach for it. I discovered Kate Bush in my early teens too. My favourite singer, singing about my favourite book. The seeds were sown as an angsty teen. Itâll last a lifetime. -
I don't go back and read the big guns as much as I should. One that got me instantly was F Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. Obviously The Great Gatsby was the first one I made an effort with by Fitzgerald - I thought it didn't live up to the hype.Â
I thought it was pretty good when I returned to it, older and wiser, a couple years later, but I instantly clicked with the sensational Tender in the Night. A cross-continental, spiralling extravaganza, it's the last novel he completed - and (whispers) his best. You can see the influence in the likes of Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends.
It's my standout classic. I probably read it too young, and thatâs why the cinching mundane pain stuck with me, and itâs arguably not a real classic, but itâs at the top of my list nonetheless.
I've read Lord Of The Rings twice while abroad, and it really is ideal for travelling. Okay, I wasn't being chased by Orcs, but the quest for a safe bed and half-decent grub made it all the more relatable.
Just brilliant escapism - the foods, the smelly streets, murder, corruption and intrigue of Henry VIIIâs England. And a superbly well-researched historical backdrop. Fans just know. They might not be a âtrueâ classic yet but as any history buff knows, thatâs really only a matter of time.
While Heavier than Heaven, Azzerad's definitive Kurt Cobain biography, is far more widely read, there's no question that his collection of essays on the DIY hardcore and punk bands of Reagan-era America is a foundational work of music journalism: a gateway to the nitty-gritty of operating outside of the major-label music industry's remit, full of tales of hard-won integrity, the toll of countless road miles, and of legacies, whether carved out in long bodies of work, or in unanswered questions.
This was one of the first books that really transported me to a different world, the way only a great story can. It made me chortle, cry and cheer out loud... and it made a young me feel better about being a tomboy. If it was good enough for Jo...
The queen of the bonkbuster, Jilly Cooper released Riders in 1985 when there was a terrible recession taking place. In her make-believe world of dirty sex and tight jodhpurs, her readers could take refuge. And we did. Most of us, multiple times.
Among some top-class reads in 2020, this is the one that captured my imagination the most.Â
The book centres on EibhlĂn Dubh NĂ Chonaill, an 18th-century noblewoman and poet who wrote the renowned Caoineadh Airt UĂ Laoghaire, a lament for her husband who was murdered. Ni Ghriofa, who is a fluent Irish speaker and a poet, brings us on a deep journey as she retraces Eibhlin's steps, from her privileged childhood in Derrynane to the devastating impact of losing her beloved husband.Â
The poetic prose - every line seems to have its own rhythm - and the author's determined quest to get to know and in some cases embody her subject makes it an absorbing, rewarding read. A haunting allegory for our times, it's a deserving winner of An Post's Book of the Year award.
The last book I read? Doireann Ni Ghriofaâs. Read at a time in my life when I was attempting to home school four kids and work from home. All of us in lockdown. Itâll stay with me forever. No book has ever described so accurately, so brutally, and so beautifully what motherhood is. A wonder.
It's hard to pick just one favourite book of recent years. The Irish literary scene is blossoming (though I'm sure it can be argued that it has never wilted) and I've found myself buying books by Irish authors, often without even reading a synopsis, such is my faith in the skills of our writers.Â
If I see a name like Sally Rooney, Kevin Barry or Donal Ryan, you'll be guaranteed I'll read it. Ryan's most recent book, Strange Flowers, is a touching, haunting text that lingers long after you've turned the last page. Of the publications of 2021, Danielle McLaughlin's debut novel, The Art of Falling, is on my TBR.
I think Sara Baume is one of the best writers around - take your pick between the fictional Spill Simmer Falter Wither, about an old man and his one-eyed dog, the (semi?) fictional A Line Made by Walking, about a spiralling artist (a must-read for all sorts of artists at all levels), or the small but powerful Handiwork, released last year.Â
Tramp Press have released all her books to date - and they can do no wrong, to be honest. From Mike McCormack to Emilie Pine to Ian Maleney to Sophie White, whose collection of essays, Corpsing, is released today, Tramp's output speaks for itself. -
In recent times, Iâve been captured by the beautiful writing in Lisa McInerneyâs The Glorious Heresies, which is based in our own Cork city, anything by Aussie author Liane Moriarty, and Sally Rooney's Normal People.
I'm currently on Stone Mad - sculptor Seamus Murphy's autobiography, which has great tales from old Cork.Â
My most affecting read of the past year was The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather. It's a biography of Witold Pilecki, a Polish resistance fighter who volunteered to become a prisoner in Auschwitz so he could gather evidence that would expose the Nazis and presumably get the camp shut down or destroyed. He did his job, but the world didn't listen. An incredible tale.
Find me a retirement village like the one at the centre of this murder mystery and Iâll check in right now. â...the Waitrose delivery vans clink with wine and repeat prescriptions every time they pass over the cattle gridâ.Â
Thereâs a warmth and genuinely good heart, as well as sometimes savage accuracy behind the character descriptions in this pacy whodunnit. There are plenty men who just canât write women, but Osman has the knack. And itâs great news that the second book is on the way in September 2021.
Making my way through this for an upcoming review in these pages - a collection of essays on the ramifications of technology on one's mental and physical health, as well as on society at large.Â
Setting the rise of technology and the companies that harness it against her own upbringing, personal struggles, the alienation of working freelance in post-austerity Ireland, Kiberd wades through the depths of the internet's effects on her personally, the places it's driven her to, and what she's taken away from it. A wake-up call, cause for self-examination, and a valuable piece of cultural anthropology.
Holocaust survivor and psychotherapist Edgar gives her guidance for living a good life and this book really resonated with me. Written in a conversational tone without judgement or 'self-help' speak, this book made me consider my life and where I need to make positive change.
- Liz Nugent - Skin Deep
- David Mitchell - Cloud AtlasÂ
- Barbara Kingsolver - Poisonwood Bible
- Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveller's Wife
- Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones
- Marcus Zusak - The Book Thief
- John Irving - The World According to Garp
- Marian Keyes - Rachel's Holiday
- Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones' Diary
- Sue Townsend - the Adrian Mole series
- Joseph O'Connor - Star of the Sea
