My reading list

I usually have a few books on the go, one for reading before sleep and others, including reference books, that require sitting up to read.  It feels like a luxury to dip into another book whilst I have others that I have not yet finished.  Since starting this blog I have taken note of some of the books which I have read or listened to.  The list is mainly prose as I read and dip into so many poetry books that it would require a great effort to document. 

2024

• Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes translated by Ann Goldstein
• The Writer's Voice by Al Alvarez
• THIS IS NOT MIAMI by Fernanda Melchor translated by Sophie Hughes
• Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
• The Woman at the Window by Padraic O Conaire translated by Eamonn O Neill
• The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby translated by Jremy Leggatt
• Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving
• My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
• A Woman's Story by Annie Ernaux translated by Tanya Leslie
• Reading Rites by Evelyn Conlon
• The Pole by J. M. Coetzee
• They All Lied by Louise Phillips
• Joe Gould's Secret by Joseph Mitchell
• Why I Write by George Orwell
• Selected Stories by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
• The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright
• A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett
• Catchlights by Niamh Prior
• Beneath the Underdog by Charles Mingus
• A Bronx Summer by Frances Browner

2023

• Hearts & Bones by Niamh Mulvey
• Open Up by Thomas Morris
• Penelope Unbound by Mary Morrissey
• Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
• The Grass Ceiling by Eimear Ryan
• Cora Staunton by Eimear Ryan
• Monkey by Wu Ch'êng-ên translated by Arthur Waley
• Love in a Time of War by Lara Marlowe
• Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
• Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion read by Devon Sovari
• Plot 29 by Allan Jenkins
• The Lock Up by John Banville
• All Down Darkness Wide by Seán Hewitt
• In My Father's House by Seán Dunne
• Centenary At Jalna by Mazo de La Roche
• Son by William Keohane
• Hereafter by Vona Groarke
• Reread 'Four Sides Full' by Vona Groarke
• The Green Fool by Patrick Kavanagh
• Nora by Nuala O'Connor
• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• The Singularities by John Banville read by Nicholas Guy-Smith
• April in Spain by John Banville

2022

• The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
• Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
• The Pathless Country by James Harper
• Regeneration by Pat Barker
• The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
• The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
• Drumshanbo by Conor McManus
• Cain by José Saramago
• Iris by John Bayley
• Party in the Blitz by Elias Canetti, translated by Michael Hofmann
• A Woman in Berlin published anonymously but believed to be by Marta Hiller, translated by Philip Boehm
• The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
• Anna Karenin by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Rosemary Edmonds
• Nabokov's Dozen by Vladimir Nabakov
• The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn
• Holding Her Breath by Eimear Ryan
• Happy Birthday Dear Alice & Stella By Starlight..plays by Bernard Farrell
• The Stone Raft by José Saramago translated from Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero.
• Small Memories, A Memoir by José Saramago translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa    
• Selected Stories by Anton Chekhov
• Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes
• Irish Women Poets Rediscovered, edited by Maria Johnston & Conor Linnie

2021

• The Gambler/Bobok/A Nasty Story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Winter Notes on Summer Impressions by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi
• The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham
• The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham
• The Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham
• The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
• Auto da Fé by Elias Canetti
• The Play of the Eyes by Elias Canetti
• The Torch in my Ear by Elias Canetti
• The Tongue Set Free by Elias Canetti
• Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
• The Idiot by Elif Batuman
• The South by Colm Tóibín
• Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner

2019/2020 

• A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
• A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
• Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
• Tales from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mintry
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
• Marie Grubbe by Jens Peter Jacobsen; translated by Mikka Haugaard
• Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke; translated by Charlie Louth [repeated reading]
• Works and Days by Hesiod; translated by A.E. Stallings
• Symposium by Plato; translated by Robin Waterfield
• Medea and Other Plays by Euripides; translated by James Morwood
• If Not, Winter   Fragments of Sappho; translated by Anne Carson
• Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
• Remnants of a Separation by Aanchal Malhotra
• Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
• The Gnostics by Sean Martin
• The White Goddess by Robert Gaves
• Handiwork by Sara Baume
• Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky translated by Sandra Smith
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov; translated by Diana Burgin & Katherine Tiernan O'Connor
• The Blue Guitar by John Banville
• Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Sweet Home by Wendy Erskine
• Goodbye to all That by Robert Graves
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
• The Man Within by Graham Greene
• The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov; translated by Michael Glenny
• The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
• H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald
• The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories edited by Stephen Alter and Wimal Dissanayake
• A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
• Wordy by Simon Schama
• Koh-I-Noor by William Dalrymple and Anina Anand
• The Cantankerous Molly Darling by Alvy Carragher
• The Odyssey by Homer; translated by Emily Wilson
• The Greek Myths by Robert Graves
• The Illiad by Homer; translated by Robert Fitzgerald
• Blind by Joginder Paul; translated by Sukrita Paul Kumar and Hina Nandrajog

    
2018

• Banaras by Diana L. Eck
• The Age of Anger, a history of the present by Pankaj Misha
• Freedom in Exile, autobiography of The Dalai Lama
• Molly Keane, A Life by Sally Phipps
• Four Sides Full, A Personal Essay by Vona Groarke
• The Story of India by Michael Wood
• The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes by Jamyang Norbu
• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
• Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
• Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
• Russian Short Stories - Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Korolenko, Chekhov, Chirikov, Andreyev, Kuprin, Gorky and Sologub, Translated by Rochelle Townsend
• The Visitor by Maeve Brennan
• Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
• Women & Power by Mary Beard
• Everything is Wonderful by Sigrid Rausing

2017 

• Beckett's Dying Words by Christopher Ricks
• Granta - New Irish Writing #135 [Colin Barrett, Kevin Barry, Sara Baume, Lucy Caldwell, John Connell, Emma Donoghue, Roddy Doyle, Belinda McKeon, Siobhán Mannion, Mary O'Donoghue, Sally Rooney, Donal Ryan, Colm Tóibín and William Wall]
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Exile by Çiler İlhan
• On The Banks - Cork City in Poems and Songs edited by Alannah Hopkin
• The Language Hospital by John Murphy 
• India, A Concise History by Francis Watson
• White Mountain by Robert Twigger 
• M-Train by Patti Smith
• Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang read by Pik-Sen Lim
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
• Sacred Tibet by Philip Rawson
• Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte read by Patricia Routledge
• Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes read by Richard Morant
• Murder in the Museum by John Rowland

2016

• Alice's Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (read by Miriam Margolyes)
• The Holy City by Patrick McCabe (read by Humphrey Bower)
• Aeneid Book VI by Virgil, Translation by Seamus Heaney
• Mao's Last Dancer by Cunxin Li (read by Paul English) - a brilliant read
• Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (Read by Hector Elizondo, Kyle Colerider-Krugh)
• Time to Dance by Melvyn Bragg (read by James Faulkner)
• Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood (read by Lorelei King)
• Robert Tressell, Dubliner; Author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Bryan MacMahon
• Second Fiddle by Mary Wesley (audio-book read by Anna Massey)
• Jumping the Queue by Mary Wesley (audio-book read by Anna Massey)
• Pompeii by Mary Beard (audio-book read by Phyllida Nash)
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré  (audio-book read by Michael Jayston)
• Pulse by Julian Barnes (audio-book read by David Rintoul)
• The George Bernard Shaw Collection (audio-book read by Kate Burton and Shirley Knight)
• Jeeves in the Offing (audio-book read by Ian Carmichael)

2015:

• Confronting the Classics by Mary Beard - a howl! 
• Dante The Divine Comedy translated by Clive James
• Poetry Ireland Review - Issue 115 - Edited by Vona Groarke
• Gitanjali - Song Offerings by Rabindranath Tagore - I heard an interesting programme on BBC Radio 4 on this poet and just happened upon the book in Waterstones recently.
• Collected Poems by W. B Yeats 
• I Could Read the Sky by Timothy O'Grady and Steve Pyke 
• Liffey Swim by Jessica Traynor - I attended a one day poetry workshop with Jessica during 2015
• Contemporary Irish Poetry edited by Paul Muldoon
• Poems that make Grown Men Cry - Edited by Anythony and Ben Holden
• Muse by Gerry Murphy
• The Place Inside by Matthew Geden
• Books Ireland magazine
• Southword
• Selected Poems by Rumi
• English Literature and the Classics - Collected by G. S. Gordon - 1912 picked it up in an interesting second hand book shop in Cork - The Time Traveller's Bookshop.
• Autumn Journal by Louis MacNiece
• The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes (audio-book narrated by Timothy West & Prunella Scales) - the first of the audio books where I now want to get a copy of the physical book.
• Leaving Home by Anita Brookner (audio-book narrated by Joanna David)
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Clipper audio-book - beautifully narrated by Atossi Leoni)
• Lustrum by Robert Harris (narrated by Oliver Ford-Davies)
• I Refuse by Per Petterson
• All of Us - The Collected Poems - Raymond Carver
• A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
• Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke
• Stepping Stones - interviews with Seamus Heaney by Dennis O'Driscoll
• Selected Prose by Derek Mahon
• I'm Your Man, The Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons
• A biography of Jack B Yeats by Hilary Pyle
• Uncle Fred in Springtime by PG Wodehouse
• Hanging with the Elephant by Michael Harding 
• Academy Street by Mary Costello
• History of the Rain by Niall Williams - my favourite book this year
• How Much Land Does a Man Need? by Leo Tolstoy
• Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
• Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Scenes from a Receding Past by Aidan Higgins
• Langrishe, Go Down by Aidan Higgins
• The Lonesome Road by Gabriel Fitzmaurice
• Lake Geneva by Gerald Dawe
• Spill simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume