My dad currently in Ireland to visit the birthplace of his relatives. Helping him plan his trip has put me in quite the Irish reading mood. Here are a few of my favorites, plus a few that are in my TBR pile.
- The Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor: An incredible story about Irish immigrants to the United States and their struggles with the potato famine.
- The Dubliners by James Joyce: No Irish list would be complete without James Joyce, it has to be done. Some of his work is impenetrable (like this book that a book club spent 18 years reading) but The Dubliners is relatively accessible and actually a lot of fun to read.
- The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker : This little-known work of the Dracula author is actually my favorite. It features all the elements of a good ghost story— intrigue, love, mummies, Egyptian artifacts. Make sure you get an edition with the original ending — it’s far spookier than the rewritten version!
- A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: Easy enough to read in an afternoon but funny enough to have you chortling for days, A Modest Proposal is an accessible version of Swift’s humor. I come back to it time and again for its incredible ability to argue something….strange.
- City of Bohane by Kevin Barry: A dystopian book set in Ireland? Sign me up! This jumped to the top of my TBR pile for this description alone: “Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane combines Celtic myth and a Caribbean beat, fado and film, graphic-novel cool and all the ripe inheritance of Irish literature to create something hilarious, beautiful, and startlingly new.”
- P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern: The book that inspired that brilliant movie with Gerard Butler — you know you want to read it!
My dad currently in Ireland to visit the birthplace of his relatives. Helping him plan his trip has put me in quite the Irish reading mood. Here are a few of my favorites, plus a few that are in my TBR pile.
The Library of Alexandra 
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