Each of the ten titles listed below by British, Irish, Scottish and Welsh authors is fantastic. I would re-read any of these recently published books anytime.
AIR by John Boyne / 2025 / novella / Irish
I knew I would love this book even before opening it up. John Boyne is a favourite of favourite authors. Air is the fourth book in his recently published Elements series (Water, Earth, Fire, Air). Each of these novellas knocked me out with its compelling storytelling. The titles are more or less stand-alone reads although Boyne cleverly weaves in elements from book to book. In Air, a father and son are flying high in the sky travelling from Australia to Ireland to meet a woman who isn’t expecting them. The journey provides Aaron Umber and his fourteen-year-old son. Emmet to connect. Aaron, however is living with demons from his past and Emmet, damaged by the strange relationship he had with his mother is being in assertive about what his father can expect from him. Air poignantly ties up the Elements series. Like the other books , Air, presents characters faced with consequences, turmoil, and surprises. I look forward to re-reading these four books someday (they will be assembled into one book soon to be published). John Boyne is a favourite of favourite authors. Thank you, Mr Boyne for Water, Earth, Fire and Air.
CLEAR by Carys Davies / 2024 / novella / Welsh
The setting is a remote Scottish island in 1843. John Ferguson, a church minister is sent to evict Ivar, the soul inhabitant on the island in order to turn the island into grazing land for sheep. John’s mission, known as The Clearances’ whereby hundreds of ministries rebelled against the system of patronage, allowing Scottish landowners to forcibly remove the rural poor from their homes. John, desperate for money makes the choice to travel to the remote island in Northern Scotland to inform the lonely Ivar of his future awaits. When Ivar finds John laying unconscious on the beach, he takes him into his home. Even though the two men do not have a common language (John speaks English, Ivor’s only means of communication is Norn a Norwegian dialect). the two men come to form a bond during Ferguson’s month-long visit, The short book (146 pages) unfolds in 52 short chapters that dig into the minds and hearts of Ivar and John and John’s wife Mary who longs for her husband’s return ‘The Royal Society Ondaatje Prize’ is an award given to a book that evokes the ‘spirit of place’. Clear was the 2025 well-deserved winner of the prize sponsored by Sir Christopher Ondaatje, older brother of Canada’s Michael Ondaatje. Clear was an absorbing, poignant read. It is a hear squeezing story of loneliness and connection and longing.I loved it so.
Excerpts
“He stood for a long time in the softly falling rain and eventually he spoke to himself silently in his own head: “I have the cliffs and the skerries and the birds. I have he white hill and the round hill and the peaked hill. I have the clear spring water and the rich good pasture that covers the tilted top of the island like a blanket. I have the old black cow and the sweet grass that grows between the rocks. I have my great chair and my sturdy house. I have my spinning wheel and I have the teapot and I have Pegi, and now, amazingly, I have John Ferguson too.” (p, 66)
“He went down to the inlet. The surface of the sea had a scraped, scrubbed look. Long, skittish shadows, hurrying in front of the wind, raced across it. Cormorants glinted, gulls hung in the air with their mouths open. Dark, heavy clouds rested on the horizon and he found himself wondering what Ivar would call them 0 would he say they were homers or bunker? Elias or glodreks? (p. 126)
GIANT by Mark Rosenblatt / 2025 / script / British
Giant was one of the best plays I’ve seen in 2025. There is no doubt that Roald Dahl is an iconic figure in the world of children’s literature. In 1983, Dahl made explicitly wrote an antiseptic review that the author is not prepared to back down on, even though it might impact the sales of his books. The play drawn on real events is set in a single afternoon in Roald Dahl’s home. Rosenblatt presents an imagined scenario set the author’s British publisher and American publisher meet and try to convince Dahl to make a public apology or risk his name and reputation. The profound irony of this play, published in 2024, is that it presents views of Israel and Jews that are part of today’s news. John Lithgow gave an astonishing performance in this award-winning production in London. Giant is a giant of a play – absorbing, powerful and shocking.
Excerpts
“I think the only way I’d ever feel truly safe is if I could absorb people. If I could just swallow them and keep them inside me or something.”
“It took a long time for Finlay to recognize that the silent version of Banjo was hurt, not angry. Banjo could be every emotion in the span of a sentence, but when he was hurt he carried it around and held it close.” (p. 312)
GLASGOW BOYS by Margaret McDonald / 2024 / YA fiction / Scottish
This YA novel recently was awarded the Carnegie Medal for Writing and at 27 years of age the author Margaret McDonald is the youngest winner of the prize. The panel of judges praised the book for being an ‘an honest and hopeful tale.” One judge, Ross Harding claimed that “Glasgow Boys is an immersive and visceral read that completely draws the readers into the present and past lives of Finlay and Banjo.” Finlay is studying for a nursing degree in Glasgow. Banjo is settling in with a new foster family and trying to succeed in his final years of high school. Finlay and Banjo once shared a room in a group home care facility and seemed to have a special bond, especially since they had each been shattered by neglectful parenting. A huge falling out the two boys once had shatters their friendship (The author presents narratives of ‘Three Years Ago” when the two boys lived together). The novel’s chapters are presented in alternating voices. McDonald navigates the lives of these two teenagers who struggle with invisible barriers as they approach adulthood. We quickly come to care about these two adolescents, their frustrations, secrets, anger and hopes. Really, all they want from life is to feel the warm touch of another. Banjo finds company with a girl he works with at a local cafe. Finlay finds friendship with two other student nurses, the residents of a seniors home and most of all, a handsome guy, Akash, who he would love to love but is cautious in how he approaches the relationship. In an interview for the BBC, Margaret McDonald says, “It was important to me to showcase the difficulties of making your way through a world that is essentially not built for you.” Glasgow Boys is a powerful coming-of-age story of male friendships and of resilience, especially when forced to live in and out of care.
HEART, BE AT PEACE by Donal Ryan / 2024 / novel / Irish
Why did I buy this book? I was inspired by the poetic title,; I learned that it was the winner of the Irish book of The Year (2024); I am fond of Irish stories and the style of the book intrigued. The conceit of the book is that the story of a rural Irish community is told through twenty-one voices. Each chapter is 8-10 pages and the book is only 194 pages (I sometimes like ‘short books). Each voice brings a perspective to the life of the townspeople and how they are connected to each other through family, work, killings, drug crime, secrets, trauma and heart. The ‘chapters’ are short-story like and moving from voice to voice demands that we enter each character’s perspective quickly and assemble the mosaic of their lives as the book unfolds. Ryan makes readers (me) work hard to make connections and thread the narratives to make sense of the whole, since the narrative is not linear. A chart of the cast of characters might have helped. Still, there is power in Donal Ryan’s writing. (“When I feel myself getting too smug, when I start counting all my blessings, I start to think abou all the things that could go wrong. I remember that I have to die someday (p. 141)”. I look forward to reading The Spinning Heart (2012), Ryan’s debut work also told through twenty-one voices examining the lives of the characters we met a decade earlier than presented in Heart, Be At Peace. which was voted the Irish Book of the Decade at the Dublin Book Festival.
Excerpt
“We never stop being children. Or at least we never fully leave our childhood behind; we drag it with us and we stretch it out along our years and every now and then when we let our grip fail it snaps and reels us back. Despite all the things we thought we lerned in life, all the toughening and hardening and strategies for coping, those memories can assail us without warning. leaving us bereft of all our armor,” (p.161)
I AM I AM I AM: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell / 2017 / Biographical Essays / Irish
My first encounter with Maggie O’Farrell was through her masterpiece novel, Hamnet (2020) . I was pleased to discover this memoir which was released in 2017. The subtitle of this biography ” Seventeen Brushes with Death” intrigued and led me to dig into 17 essays where the author had experienced some harrowing experiences with health and unexpected encounters. I’ve recently have had strong reads with powerful memoirs (Knife by Salman Rushdie; Shattered by Hanif Kureishi) that have helped me realize that ‘there but for the grace go I’. Like those other two biographies, O’Farrell’s memoir reminds us of the fragile, precarious nature of our days on this planet. This book is a collection of harrowing stories told with honesty about turmoils and traumas the author has experienced and survived through throughout her life. O’Farrell tales of near-death experiences include her childhood illness with leaving the author bedridden for a year, an encounter with a South American man with a machete at her throat, an experience (actually two) where she almost drowned, miscarriages, volunteering to be part of a knife-throwing act, a fortuitous escape by one centimetre from being struck by a speeding lorry passing by.. The final piece entitled ‘Daughter’ relates the terrifying struggle of protecting her daughter who is challenged with an immunology disorder leading to a fragile life of living with anaphylaxis; eczema). Blessedly, O’Farrell has survived and used her fine talent as writer to share the life-altering events that have shaped her life. Am, I Am, I Am is a gut-wrenching biography. Oh My, Oh My, Oh My.
RAISING HARE: The hart-warming story of an unlikely friendship by Chloe Dalton / 2024/ nonfiction / British
During the pandemic lockdown, author Chloe Dalton leaves the city and returns to her chidhood home in the countryside where she encounters a newly born hare and becomes its faithful custodian. This book chronicles the journey of the relationship of human and animal. The story documents the challenges of providing safety and survival, nourishment and trust of an animal rescued from the wild. Chloe Dalton presents the story with exquisite writing about the natural world (I was reminded of the book H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald ). Her knowledge, through inquiry, of the life of a leveret is astounding. Her primary research method as she sensitively observes and questions the life of her visitor is an exceptional. A fascinating memoir. Highly recommended. Raising Hare was shortlisted for several awards, Waterstone’s book of the year, Hatchard’s First Biography Prize, Women’s Prize for nonfiction)
Excerpt
“As the earth’s winter palette gave way to the lush green growth of spring, and the strenghtening sun dried out the land, deepening shadow and creating sharper contrasts, the leveret’s colouring shifted. Its fur lost its dark chocolate hue, until its paws, flanks and chest were the colour of spilt cream and only the fur on its back and ears still recalled its newborn pelt.” (pages 45-46)
SPRING: The Story of a Season by Michael Morpurgo / 2025 / nonfiction / British
Ever since reading War Horse a number of years ago, I have become a Michael Morpurgo fan and have a bookshelf of children’s literature titles where his work shines. I was thrilled to acquire his newest release, a his first nonfiction book in forty years written for an adult audience. Spring provides the author to observe, reflect and record the life surrounding him on the farm he has lived on in rural Devon for over forty years. Spring is a story expectations and waiting for an uncoming season. What a beautiful testimony celebrating the natural world that unfolds outside his window as the spring season unfolds. For Morpurgo – and the reader – there is joy and wonder found in the glory bluebells, the songs of birds, the birth of lambs, and encounters with hawks, swallows, hares and otters. Woodblock prints created by Charlotte Whatmore are ideally suited to the images that Morpurgo paints. The book also includes poems and shared memories of springs lived in the author’s past. It was a delight and honour in the ‘eyes and mind and heart to the little corner of England’ that Morpurgo belongs to and calls home. An uplifting gem of a read! Mr. Morpurgo, you are a British gem.
NOTE: Michael Morpurgo and his wife Clare founded Farms for City Children in 1976 at Nethercott Farm in Devon with the intent of expanding the horizons of children and towns by offering them a week in the countryside living together on one of their farms.
Excerpt
“Hard to believe sometimes, in the depths of winter, that spring really does happen, the skeletal trees and wind and rain and grey skies do give way to blue skies and rustling green leaves, that it’s not a figment of our imagination, not memory and wishful thinking playing tricks on us.” (p. 8)
“And today as I came out of the woods into the fields and saw the lambs cavorting – they really do skip – I felt the trees believe, as I do, that spring is springing. I can smell it in the air. I’ve seen the early swelling of the buds in some low-slung twigs, when I looked more closely.” (p. 40)
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DAVID HOCKNEY / Thames & Hudson / 2020 / quotations; art work / British
David Hockney is a British Isles treasure, a unique prolific contemporary artist respect throughout the world. By presenting over 200 of the artists’s remarks, this book, small in size, is a treasure not only for its ability to convey Hockney’s views as an artist but for its ability to help us think about how we need to see the world around us but how we understand the world of creating art and viewing art. The book is divided into 9 sections with such titles as ‘Hockney on Life’; ‘Hockney on Inspiration’, ‘Hockney on Making Art’. Throughout the book we are blessed with a number of plates that show Hockney’s work at different stages of his career. But really it is Hockney’s words that shine. Some epigrams are amusing, some profound or pithy, but each statement authentically gives insights into the world according to David Hockney.
Here are a handful of favourite quotations that I found to be inspirational:
“On the chest of drawers at the end of my bed, because that’s the first thing I saw when I woke up, I painted ‘Get up and work immediately’. (p. 20)
“It’s good to rest and read.” (p. 47)
“Pictures have been helping us to see for about thirty thousand years.” (p. 63)
“The Chinese say you need three things for paintings: the hand, the eye, the heart. Two won’t do.” (p. 88)
“Teaching someone to draw is teaching them to look.” (p. 98)
“I love life.” (p. 165)
SHOUT OUT
HERMIT by Chris McQueer / novel / Scottish
Hermit is a powerful debut novel by contemporary acclaimed Scottish author Chris McQueer who gained recognition for two short story collections (Hings and HWFG). This book is a disturbing, sad, funny and thought-provoking of one boy’s journey into the incel culture, when someone, usually male, is frustrated by their lack of sexual experience and blame women and society for their lack of romantic success . I wasn’t much familiar with the world of incel (involuntary celibate) but the television series Adolescence made me aware of the topic of misogyny, toxic masculinity and violence.
Chris McQueer has created a poster boy character, Jamie Skeleton, a nineteen year old who dropped out of school and now spends most of his days alone in his room living the life of hermit, sleeping or playing video games. Jamie hasn’t left his home in months and doesn’t think he can do so. (“The ony thing that fills me with more dread than going outside is having to interact with other people.” Jamie describes himself as weird, freak and mental and we learn early in the novel that the disastrous condition of his room and his reluctance to take care of his hygiene validates that Jamie is indeed disturbed. Except for a neighbourhood online ‘companion’, Lee, that plays video games with, Jamie has no friends. In alternate chapters, we learn about Jamie’s mother Fiona who, like her son is anti-social, withdrawn from life and depressed. Fiona has lost any self-worth because of an abusive marriage. Is she to blame for the reclusive person her son has become? Is there any hope for Jamie and Fiona? I screamed into the pages, “Please get therapy.!” but both mother and son are trapped with mental health issues, angry with themselves and with each other. (The opening line of the novel has Jamie claim “She disnae love me.” ) When Fiona urges Jamie to apply for a job, Jamie’s anger boils (“She’s oan ma case aboot gettin a job, man). When Lee tells Jamie that there’s a guy named Seb that he met online through incel forums, the two plan to go to London since Seb promises them to help them confront their problems and deal with their self-hate and hate for women.
I found Hermit to be totally engaging read. I felt pity for both Jamie and Fiona. I was disturbed by description of the of the harrowing incel culture, carefully researched by the author. The alternating chapters, presented in the first person voice of the two central character worked to convey the parallel emotional despair of Jamie and Fiona. Much of the dialogue is presented in Scottish dialect which may be defeating for some but I found added authenticity and strong voice (and humour) to the writing (“Wit wid ye de wi wan mair day off?”.) I think I will think about Hermit for a long time. Chris McQueer is spot on with the pulse of what is happening in the world of toxic masculinity. He has written a punch in the heart, gut-wrenching tough tale of our times. Bravo!