Here is where I try my darndest to do a coding and log everything I read! Sorted from most to least recent, starting from January 2025. This only counts books I fully finished because otherwise there would be ten million half read books from the library. (I've taken out over two hundered items and finished no where near that many.) I really love the library and so most things I read come from there. If you ever want to get to buy as many books as you want, without worrying if they'll be worth it OR how much they'll cost, the library truly is your friend.
Currently reading:Solaris
A Probably Incomplete List of Books I've Read Over the Past Few Months
I'll log them all indiviually at some point
Claude Monet by Ann Summer
Botecelli by Frederico Poletti
Emma by Jane Austen
Anne of Green Gables
Rogaer McPahil - An Artist by Nature
Fria Kahlo and Diego Rivera
David Hockeny: A Chronology
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Digital Minimalism
Little Women (first book)
The Year of the Griffin
The Thing at Black Hole Lake
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Solaris
By Stanisław Lem
Finsihed: 11th March 2026
Review: This books was a really interesting mix of very classic sci-fi elements (it's was published in 1961) and really wonderful mind-bending mystery. There was a lot of really good tenseness throughout the book and it played on themes of psychological and body horror. The mysterious phenomenon at the heart of the book was fascinating and I enjoyed the way it slowly morphed from 'supernatural' to 'scientific but creepy'. I will say this book also very heavily contains the classic sci-fi dense infordump about every 50 pages or so. While some of the later dumps (during all of which the narrator sits down and reads some books and then reflects) contained very beautiful language, I found them all to be so dense as to take great effort to actually absorb the information. There's also some pretty yikes racism in the first half of the book and a little bit of sexism so keep that in mind if you plan on reading it.
Logged:
Source: Library
The Dark Lord of Derkholm
By Dianna Wynne Jones
Finsihed: 5th March 2026
Review: Dianna Wynne Jones at it again! This book exemplifies the reasons I keep coming back to her writing: it's funny without being a comedy, there's fantastic worldbuilding without there being endless politicing or detailed magic systems to keep track of, a colourful cast of characters, and the great coming together at the end where everything begins to make sense. I'd already listened to 'Year of the Griffin' (the sequel, DWJ can generally be read in any order) on audiobook from the library but that didn't stop this book from feeling just as fantastic and magical. I do wish the second half had taken up just a little more space, it would have made the first half drag less near it's end I think. There were also one or two moments I think the book could have managed without, but overall I think this has to be one of my favourite fantasy books of all time, and I will definitely be returning to it sooner rather than later.
Logged:
Source: Library
The Plague
by Albert Camus
Finished: 27th Feburary 2026
Review: It feels a bit hard to review this book, it's not exactly going for widespread commercial success, but I'll try. For a man who (as far as I know) never actually lived through a biological pandemic, Camus had fantastic insight into how they worked. The whole process of the disease and it's effect on society (with the caveat that there's no stay-at-home order) feels eerily similar to how I remember the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic playing out. From denial, to the whispers of the first few cases, to the flood and the increasingly desperate measured that need to be taken. As a wider metaphor for Fascism (Camus wrote this while/after living in France during WWII and serving in the French resistance.) I think it also does very well, and it was a great text to annotate and analyse as I read it. I had actually attempted to read this first when I was 14/15, and had left many annotations behind me. It was really interesting to see what I was thinking about all those years ago, when a book like this was much harder for me to get through. Overall, it's a very worthwhile read for exploring themes of occupation, entrapment, disease, and Fascism. Also Tarrou and Rieux should have gotten to kiss on the lips but that's besides the point.
Logged:
Source: Bought in a bookshop, I believe in Dublin.
The Word for World is Forest
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Finished: 23rd Feburary 2026
Review: This book is a really good and really interesting exploration of colonisation, extractivism, and the introduction of violence into society. I think it also brings up really interesting questions about the concept of a 'civilised' or 'advanced' society, ultimately arguing (I think) that for all their technological prowess, it is the Terrans who are severly lacking when it comes to their societal structure, their relationship to the land, and their understanding of the world (exemplified through the vast difference between the funtion of dreams in each society). I really enjoyed reading it as well, at at about 200 pages it flew by. I think it's a novella I'll be returning to as the years go by, especially in our age of growth and resource extraction at all costs.
Logged:
Source: Library
Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran
by Roya Hakakian
Finished: Mid-Feburary 2026
Review: An eloquent and reflective memoir written from the unique perspective of an Jewish Iranian coming of age during the Islamic Revolution. I think you can really see the same skills that would have shone in Roya Hakakian's career with 60 minutes in this book too. It's a deeply personal story, with strong descriptions of her hometown of Tehran that build up a beautiful but painful childhood. It's a very nuanced story, leaving room for all of the complexity of real life, and life as an ethnic minority under an oppressive regime. Writing this review in March 2026, I'd reccommend it to anyone trying to understand the history of Iran just a little more, and to anyone looking to learn about the much less-discussed experience of Iranian Jews.
Logged:
Source: Library
The Anti-Capitalist Book Fashion
by Tansy E. Hoskins
Finished: Mid-Feburary 2026
Review: A great piece-by-piece takedown of the modern fashion industry, from luxury brands on runways to Tesco. Hoskins has a background as a journalist, and she pulls no punches investigating the damage fashion has done to workers, consumers, human rights, union protections, the environment, and more. While three chapters are devoted to the various attempts to fix this toxic system, Hoskins doesn't propose any one specific route other than a large scale move away from capitalism. I did really appreciate her focus on current labour movements across the Global South, and on voices from these countries, over protest or analysis done by consumers in the Global North. If you have an unease with the fashion industry, or know other people say it's bad but aren't sure why, then this book is the perfect starting point to explain to you the modern issues and harms it produces. If you think you already know everything about the fashion industry, give it a read anyway! I've been off fast fashion for 6 years now and even I found knew a pertinent examples and facts. The solutions based chapters are also a great trigger for you own thinking and possibly even action.
Logged:
Source: Library
Frida Kahlo: The Still Lives
By Salomon Grimberg and Hayden Herrera
Finished:Early August
Review:This book showed me a whole side of Frida Kahlo's art that I had never really known about before. The way it links events in her life to the paintings is really interesting, and there was lots in there that I hadn't known about before. At time it does feel a little like Grimberg is reading too far into things (in the way you often find in the 'fine art' world) but I also understand what it's like to be a nerd and to be seeing things no one else does in pieces of art so I should probably give some grace. The book was also really inspiriing for me, especially given how much easier I find it to do still lifes than portraits.
Logged:
Source:Library
Is Technology Making Us Sick? (A Primer for the 21st Century)
by:Ian Douglas and Matthew Taylor (general editor)
Finished:19th July 2025
Review:This was a really interesting read, I think the book manages to strike a balance between abandoing technology completley and using it without care for the impacts. The book also focuses a lot on making sure that you understand how a lot of modern (algorithmic) technology works and in doing so aims to empower you to use it with more care. I don't know if that's the one magic solution to every problem or if the book if 100% right but it was a interesting. The way certain sentences are formed can make it a bit difficult to understand, certain words get moved around and ideas phrased oddly but not in complex language. I found the method of text formatting really interesting, paragraphs that were the most important were larger in size and paragraphs that were less important/more detailed were smaller.
Logged:
Source:Library
Sunrise on the Reaping
by: Suzanne Collins
Finished: 6th July 2025
Review:I read the original Hunger Games when I was around 10-12 and it's a series I'ver returned to before so needless to say I was excited (and a little nervous, this is after all a new book in a series I love) to read this book. After fianlly getting to the end of the hundereds-of-people long waiting list at the library I opened the book.
It's safe to say, Suzanne Collins is good at moving stories. There was lots of actions, and sad/heartbreaking moments and the ending was like a punch to the gut. I enjoyed the way that the themes that have been around for four books now were still able to be developed further and explored in new ways and the way Haymitch's story is told vs. how it is presented in the second book is very clever. Good job Suzanne, this is going to be spinning in my head for a while.
Logged:
Source:Library
The Magic of an Irish Rainforest: A Visual Journey
by: Eoghan Daltun
Finished:6th of June 2025
Review: Wow I'm really on a roll with this non fiction stuff. 10/10, this book is an inspiring call to action while managing to hold onto the joy and wonder of what it is we should be fighting for. Eoghan's (pronounced like its anglicised version 'Owen') photography is just stunning, capturing the beauty of our natural forests from across the island and the seasons. There is detail and wide landscape shots and everything inbetween, and it all drive home just how stunning and ecologically diverse Ireland should be. I finished the whole book in one sitting (it's just shy of 200 pages, 80 percent photos with small bites of accompanying text and 20 percent larger chunks of writing) and I think it really helped to overwhelm me with just how much we are missing out on in Ireland. Like I said, it's a joyful call to action and will certainly be in the back of my mind for the rest of my life and as I plan to attempt to become more involved with volunteering over the next few months. Go raibh míle maith agat, a Eoghan. Bhí do leabhar iontach ar fad.
(You can read more of my thoughts after finishing this book here)
Logged:
Source:Library
The Illustrated Dust Jacket: 1920-1970
by: Martin Salisbury
Finished:5th of June 2025
Review:9.5/10 A really great collection of book covers spanning a wide range of artists and styles, a real treaure trove of illustration. I'd get it for myself if it wasn't so easy to get from the library. I loved the little insights into all of the example covers shown and the space they were given on each page. It was a very easy book to pick up and put down in whatever time span you wished. It was a little annoying that the author would repeatedly mention how collectable certain books were, but I guess that's some people's cup of tea.
Logged:
Source:Library
Georgia O'Keeffe
by: Taschen
Finished:I'd put it around early to mid May
Review:10/10 This is a really insightful and beautiful book into the life and work of Georgia O'Keffee! She's been a long time 'artist who lives in the back of my head as inspiration' but I really loved spending ages and ages staring at all the paintings included (which are blown up to a good size and often given a page all to themselves). They picked a good variety of work from her life, I wish there had been just a little more from her later life (especially the clay forms they mention) but the amount of paintings from New Mexico included made me very happy. The book doesn't shy away from her life beyond flower close-ups, which I feel like gets forgotten in the conversation around her despite the sheer volume of her work (for good non-flower examples I reccomend 'Summer Days' and 'Sky Above Clouds'). Overall it was a really good book, I read every word which I wouldn't nomrally do with art books but will definetly be doing from now on!
Logged:
Source:Library
The Dispossesed
by: Ursula K. Le Guin
Finished:19th of April 2025
Review:10000/10 Le Guin's writing never fails to amazing me and this book is no exception. It is a beautiufl exploration of utopia, revolution, anarchism, change, and a consumerist society much like the one we have today. I will spend so, so much time ruminating over the characters and worldbuilding, it is a quiet book with a strong message that I would encourage everyone to read and learn something from.
Logged:
Source:Library
Power and Terror
by: Noam Chomsky
Finished:8th of April 2025
Review:10/10. As someone who grew up in a firmly post 9/11 world this book was really interesting. It's a collection of interviews and talks given by Chomsky, and his analysis of the world at the time as well as the causes of violence and unrest is very well thought through. I was able to connect a lot of his analysis to the world today, including to Irish issues and our place in the world but international topics too.
Logged:
Source:Secondhand (sale of work)
A Conspiracy of Truths
by: Alexandra Rowland
Finished:12th of March 2025
Review:8/10 This is a pretty good fantasy book with a lot of engaging moving parts. I got this book in late 2023 and then fianlly came back to it this March, I flew theough it surprisingly quickly. I liked the plot and worldbuilding and most of the small stories trapped within, although some parts of the book felt a bit long or uneccesary.
Logged:
Source:Secondhand (charity shop)
The Left Hand of Darkness
by: Ursula K. Le Guin
Finished:5th of March 2025
Review: 100/10. The Left Hand of Darkness is a beautiful science fiction exploration of gender and sexuality and how society formulates and enforces it. It gives us an insight into a different system of gender and the plot is a beautiful thing. This book is one of my favourites of all time now and I will be writing thoughts on it somewhere.
Logged:
Source:Bought in a bookshop in France
Permaculture
by: Maya Blackwell
Finished:I'm gonna hazard a guess at early Feburary
Review: 9.9/10. This is a great introduction to a lot of the philosophy and practical principles behind permaculture, with some real world examples as well to help set you on your way.
Logged:
Source:Library!
Moving Pictures
by: Terry Pratchett
Finished:idk sometime in January
Review: 10/10! This book was so, so funny. Gaspode the wonder dog will live in my head forever. I did start this book in July but let's just say I was taking my time and not completley forgetting about it.
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