The 75 best moderately difficult books from Ireland

No. 11 on this list. A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing · Eimear McBride · 2014

Eimear McBride's novel tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother who is living with the after effects of a brain tunour. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and sensual urges of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation. Eimear McBride's debut tells, with astonishing insight and in brutal detail, the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, to read A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is to plunge inside its narrator's head, experiencing her world first-hand. This isn't always comfortable - but it is always a revelation. Touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity and mordant wit. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny - and alarming. It is a book you will never forget. The story is about a young woman's relationship with her older brother, who suffers a brain tumour in childhood that later returns when he is a young man. It spans roughly 20 years and is set largely in an isolated farming community in the west of Ireland at a time when the Catholic Church dominated every facet of a person's life. The first thing that strikes you about the novel is the prose style, which ignores all the usual conventions about use of the English language and quite brilliantly furrows its own unique groove. While it sputters along in fits and starts using half-formed sentences, incorrect grammar and isolated words, there are enough bursts of fluid and lucid writing to orientate the reader.

No. 12 on this list. Man and Superman · George Bernard Shaw · 1903

Man and Superman appears on 86 university syllabi (48th percentile by Open Syllabus data) and holds Wikipedia articles in 9 languages. It is taught in drama and modern literature courses but sits behind Pygmalion and Major Barbara in Shaw's own canon. The Wikipedia article includes dedicated Reception and Adaptations sections, indicating sustained critical discourse.

No. 13 on this list. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy · John le Carré · 1974

Widely taught in courses on Cold War literature and genre fiction, and routinely cited as the novel that elevated the spy thriller into literary fiction. It appears on TIME's 100 Best English-Language Novels (1923–2005) list, though its academic footprint remains smaller than a canonical literary novel like Beloved or Gatsby.

No. 14 on this list. The Black Prince · Iris Murdoch · 1973

The Black Prince ranks among Murdoch's most celebrated novels and occupies an established position in postwar British fiction. It receives consistent inclusion in academic curricula and authoritative literary histories, though not at the absolute summit of canonical achievement.

No. 15 on this list. The Complete Illustrated Works of Oscar Wilde · Oscar Wilde · 1908

Wilde's major works are taught widely in English literature courses, though this illustrated collection is an edition rather than a single canonical text. The author's central works lift it into the established range.

No. 16 on this list. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold · John le Carré · 1963

Alec Leamas runs a network of agents in East Berlin until they are systematically killed, ending with his best man shot climbing the Wall. British Intelligence brings him home and offers a new mission: pose as a defector, a drunk, a broken man. The plan works too well. Le Carré strips the spy novel of its glamour, replacing Bond's martinis with Leamas's cheap whiskey and casual violence. The Cold War here is a moral void where both sides use the same methods and discard the same people. The ending is devastating not because of what happens but because of what it reveals about the institutions Leamas has served.

No. 17 on this list. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful · Edmund Burke · 1757

Burke's Enquiry holds a firm canonical position in British 18th-century literature, aesthetics, and philosophy curricula. It is a required text in courses on British Romanticism, aesthetic theory, and the history of criticism — appearing in Oxford World's Classics and Penguin editions. It is not as universally taught as major literary works but is considered foundational reading for anyone studying Romantic aesthetics or the intellectual context of Kant's Critique of Judgment.

No. 18 on this list. Carmilla · Sheridan Le Fanu · 1872

Carmilla is a fixture in Gothic literature and vampire fiction courses, recognized as the foundational pre-Dracula vampire text and a landmark of Victorian horror. Its Wikipedia article spans 40+ languages, and it appears regularly on 'essential horror' and 'Gothic fiction' reading lists. Less broadly canonical than Frankenstein or Dracula but firmly established within the Gothic literary tradition.

No. 19 on this list. Under the Net · Iris Murdoch · 1954

Ranked 95th on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, included on TIME's All-TIME 100 Novels, and taught on 141 university syllabi (54th percentile). It is the Murdoch novel most often assigned in courses on postwar British fiction.

No. 20 on this list. Pygmalion · George Bernard Shaw · 1913

Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council, Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate – English

Pygmalion appears regularly in drama curricula as a key example of Shaw's wit and social commentary. Its transformation into My Fair Lady extended its cultural reach, though the play itself remains studied for its feminist undertones and class critique. Essential reading for Edwardian drama and the comedy of ideas.

No. 21 on this list. Foster · Claire Keegan · 2010

Rapidly becoming a modern classic of Irish literature. The 2022 film adaptation brought wider attention, and it is increasingly taught in universities.

No. 22 on this list. Checkout 19 · Claire-Louise Bennett · 2022

Published in 2021, too recent for canonical assessment, though it appeared on New York Times '10 Best Books of the Year' and received significant critical attention. Bennett engages canonical modernist traditions (Woolf, Joyce) and the autofiction movement. The work's experimental ambition and metafictional sophistication position it as a serious literary achievement, but its ultimate place in the canon remains uncertain.

No. 23 on this list. Let the Great World Spin · Colum McCann · 2009

Let the Great World Spin is a celebrated contemporary novel that appears in reading groups and literary culture broadly but has limited measurable academic adoption. Zero syllabus appearances in the data despite its prize pedigree suggests it has not yet achieved the required reading status of older canonical works. It is widely known and respected but not yet institutionally entrenched in the way that genuinely canonical texts are.

No. 24 on this list. The Master · Colm Tóibín · 2004

In January 1895 Henry James anticipates the opening of his first play, Guy Domville, in London. The production fails, and he returns, chastened and humiliated, to his writing desk. The result is a string of masterpieces, but they are produced at a high personal cost. In The Master Colm Tóibín captures the exquisite anguish of a man who circulated in the grand parlours and palazzos of Europe, who was astonishingly vibrant and alive in his art, and yet whose attempts at intimacy inevitably failed him and those he tried to love. It is a powerful account of the hazards of putting the life of the mind before affairs of the heart.

No. 25 on this list. Reading Turgenev · William Trevor · 1991

Mary Louise Dallon, fearful of being trapped forever in her parents' cramped farmhouse, is too naive to resist the limited attractions of the nearby small town in the provincial Ireland of 1955. A hasty marriage leads to despair and desolation.

No. 26 on this list. Fools of Fortune · William Trevor · 1983

Fools of Fortune won the 1983 Whitbread Prize and stands as one of William Trevor's major novels, widely taught in Irish literature courses and studied as a significant examination of the Anglo-Irish experience and the Troubles' long shadow. While perhaps less internationally prominent than Trevor's celebrated short stories, it occupies an important place in the Irish literary canon as a meditation on historical violence and memory.

No. 27 on this list. A Perfect Spy · John le Carré · 1986

Widely regarded by critics as le Carré's best novel and one of the finest English novels of the 1980s, but spy fiction carries lower academic penetration than literary fiction regardless of quality. It appears in specialist courses on the Cold War novel and contemporary British fiction, and is regularly cited on 'best of the century' lists (Time, Modern Library), but is not yet a university syllabus fixture at the level of mainstream literary canon.

No. 28 on this list. Amongst Women · John McGahern · 1990

Appears on 203 university syllabi (57th percentile, Open Syllabus Project), primarily in Irish literature and postcolonial fiction courses. Wikipedia article exists in only 3 languages, indicating limited global canonical reach. A cornerstone of Irish literary study but not a world-literature curriculum staple.

No. 29 on this list. On Canaan's Side · Sebastian Barry · 2011

An Irish woman, now elderly in New York, looks back on her century of life—emigration, love, violence, and the history that swept through her. Barry's lyrical novel spans the American and Irish 20th century through one woman's voice.

No. 30 on this list. The Nice and the Good · Iris Murdoch · 1969

John Ducane investigates a colleague's suicide at Whitehall and uncovers secrets that spread through his circle of friends and lovers. Murdoch's novel is a comedy of manners and morals, its large cast entangled in desires they barely understand. The prose is elegant and ironic, each character convinced of their own goodness while causing harm. The novel asks whether niceness and goodness are the same thing, whether moral philosophy can survive contact with actual lives.