It’s been a long time since I mentioned the books that I’m reading. 2015 was my “Irish” year. I read 25 books and 14 of them dealt with Ireland in some fashion.
Here’s the Irish list:
- The Lion of Ireland, Morgan Llywelyn
- Finn MacCool, Morgan Llywelyn
- 1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion, Morgan Llywelyn
- Bard, The Odyssey of the Irish, Morgan Llywelyn
- Pride of Lions, Morgan Llywelyn
- The Last Prince of Ireland, Morgan Llywelyn
- 1921: The Great Novel of the Irish Civil War, Morgan Llywelyn
- 1949: A Novel of the Irish Free State, Morgan Llywelyn
- 1972: A Novel of Ireland’s Unfinished Revolution, Morgan Llywelyn
- 1999: A Novel of the Celtic Tiger and the Search for Peach, Morgan Llywelyn
- The Princes of Ireland, Edward Rutherford
- A Short History of Ireland, John O’Beirne Ranelagh
- Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas, Morgan Llywelyn
- The Rebels of Ireland, Edward Rutherford
And the rest:
- Lyndon Johnson and The American Dream, Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
- The Girls of August, Anne Rivers Siddons
- Effortless Savings: A Money Management Guide to Saving Without Sacrifice, Richard Syrop
- How To Compost: Everything You Need to Know to Start Composting and Nothing You Don’t!, Lars Hundley
- 365 Days of Vegan Recipes, Katie Emma
- Pizza Pie In The Sky: A Complete Guide to Pizza, Penguin Cooking
- You Are A Writer, Jeff Goins
- Daily Self-Discipline: Everyday Habits and Exercise to Build Self-Discipline and Achieve Your Goals, Martin Meadows
- The Book of Fate, Brad Meltzer
- Here’s to Not Catching Our Hair on Fire: An Absent-Minded Tale of Life with Giftedness and Attention Deficit-Oh Look! A Chicken!, by Stacey Turis
If you are interested in Irish history and Irish lore, I highly recommend most everything that Morgan Llywelyn has ever written!
In the second list, I highly recommend those that are highlighted in green. The rest were either fluff or so-so. And the books highlighted in red, don’t waste your time!
I’m a bit amazed at the number of books I read this past year. In recent years, my norm was 10 – 15 books. But, many of the books listed above are shorter than those read in previous years. Some I’ve read more than once. Plus I began reading electronic books on my phone at night when I couldn’t sleep, and then I acquired a Kindle in December, so I think that accounts for much of the increased read time.
Next week I’ll list the books I’ve read since the first of the year.
Hmm, our library has nothing by Morgan Llywelyn. I’ve been reading Alex Kava’s books – The Maggie O’Dell novels (out of order, oops) – and enjoying them, but not making enough time to read like I would like.
I looked up Maggie O’Dell – I don’t think they are anything like Morgan Llywelyn’s books! They do look interesting, though.
Quite a list. I like how you rated them with a color code. Excellent idea!
So, you like the Kindle? Do you feel you retain as much reading in that format?
Roberta, I love my Kindle. We had one of the first versions and I didn’t care much for that one. But this one is much nicer, very lightweight. And I love being able to adjust the brightness, which makes reading in bed at 2 a.m. much nicer. I haven’t really noticed any difference in my reading retention, but I have noticed a big uptick in the amount of reading being done.