Eek… it’s nearly Christmas! So here comes shopping, frosty mornings, eating til you want to vomit and then eating some more, boxes of disgusting biscuits, crazy relatives visiting and books, books, books. The best thing for me about two weeks off school is having the chance to sit down and read. So in the spirit of spreading my reading addiction, here are some old favourites that I recommend!
Searching for the meaning of life? Try “The Happiness Hypothesis” by Jonathan Haidt.
You could also read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig – my favourite book when I was 17… tough going though, requires intense concentration!
If you feel like evolution, science and basically everything in the universe is a bit of a mystery to you, read “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. You will feel smarter AND know more stuff by the time you get to the end.
In my youth I wrote some pretty bad poetry. It would have been a lot better if I’d had this book because I might actually have had half a clue what I was doing!
I also love love love stand-up comedians and secretly wish I could join their club – 
except I’m not really that funny so instead I semi-stalk them in print hoping some of their funny will rub off on me (wow, that sounds weird when I read it back…). Two of my faves are “The Naked Jape” by Jimmy Carr and Tina Fey’s autobiography.
The next lot are books I randomly grabbed off the bookshelf because I love them and they are fab!
Finally, some recent publications. I’ve just had the incredible privilege of having my teacher of the year speech published in Gene Kerrigan’s brilliant analysis of the boom and the bust “The Big Lie”. If you have a vague nagging sense that your head’s still spinning and you don’t quite fully grasp what the hell just happened to our country, this is the one for you!
Meanwhile if you’re the kind of person who likes to look to the future instead of lamenting the mistakes of the past try “An Optimist’s Tour of the Future” by Mark Stevenson (see above!).
Finally, if you’d like to know lots of random fascinating facts about the universe, try “A Neutron Walks into a Bar” and if you’re up for a hilarious take on Irish History try “1916 and all that”…
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