Here at For Reading Addicts we wanted to create another reading challenge for ourselves and our followers, something a little different, something that perhaps takes us all out of our reading comfort zone and so we have decided that the For Reading Addicts reading challenge for 2017 will feature authors from around the world.
Each month we will select books written by authors who hail from a specific country and will then share that list on our Social Media pages and groups. We will then set up a discussion event for those who are taking part to chat about the books they read and to share their experiences of reading books from authors they may not ever have come across otherwise. We will also create a poll question asking for suggestions of authors for the next month’s country.
For our September challenge we asked our Cwts Book Club members for suggestions of authors from Ireland. The list this vote produced was very long, these are the five books we have chosen, by the authors who received most votes, for our For Reading Addicts Reading Challenge 2017 September edition.
In the Woods – Tana French
When he was twelve years old, Adam Ryan went playing in the woods with his two best friends. He never saw them again. Their bodies were never found, and Adam himself was discovered with his back pressed against an oak tree and his shoes filled with blood. He had no memory of what had happened.
In the Woods US
In the Woods UK
Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
It is a story of extreme hardship and suffering, in Brooklyn tenements and Limerick slums – too many children, too little money, his mother Angela barely coping as his father Malachy’s drinking bouts constantly brings the family to the brink of disaster. It is a story of courage and survival against apparently overwhelming odds.
Light a Penny Candle – Maeve Binchey
To escape the chaos of London during World War II, young Elizabeth White is sent to live a safer life in the small Irish town of Kilgarret. It is there, in the crowded, chaotic O’Connor household, that she meets Aisling, a girl who soon becomes her very best friend, sharing her pet kitten and secretly teaching her the intricacies of Catholicism.
Light a Penny Candle US
Light a Penny Candle UK
Brooklyn – Colm Toibin
In a small town in the south-east of Ireland in the 1950s, Eilis Lacey is one among many of her generation who cannot find work at home. So when a job is offered in America, it is clear that she must go. Leaving her family and home, Eilis sets off to forge a new life for herself in Brooklyn.
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha – Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle’s Booker Prize-winning novel describes the world of ten-year-old Paddy Clarke, growing up in Barrytown, north Dublin. From fun and adventure on the streets, boredom in the classroom to increasing isolation at home, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is the story of a boy who sees everything but understands less and less.
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha US
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha UK
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