My Favorite Irish Song and Authors for Your St. Patrick's Day Festivities

I don't know if you're celebrating St. Patrick's Day, but my family usually gets together for some form of Irish meal (corned beef and cabbage mostly, but I think we're actually trying something new this year!), our annual watching of The Luck of the Irish, traditional green ware, plenty of beer, and of course, my awesomely festive headband:

But let's talk Irish authors, shall we?

My all-time favorite Irish author -surprising no one- is Eoin Colfer, my favorite author period. If you're looking for a good Irish read today, I'd recommend Iron Man: The Gauntlet, which he wrote for Marvel last fall. Tony Stark finds himself on the Emerald Isle and teams up with a few fantastic Irish characters to defeat a classic comic villain. Muahaha! It is THE BEST. EVER.

Second up, Derek Landy, for his fun and fast-paced Skulduggery Pleasant series, involving the magic underground of Dublin and the snappy-dressing, snappy-talking, walking, talking, flame-throwing skeleton sorcerer/detective.

And my favorite Irish song?

Of the bevy of songs my da used to sing to my sister and I at bedtime, one of my favorites was The Unicorn. It was only a few years ago that I ever heard the actual song by the Irish Rovers and it's amazing.

But even more amazing was discovering the song was written by my favorite poet -Shel Silverstein. Talk about happy coincidences!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

Who are your favorite Irish authors?

TTT: Ten Finished Series I Have YET to Finish

Look! New pages! I've added a master list of all of the book reviews I have done here and on my YouTube channel. I couldn't decide how best to arrange them, because there are two kinds of review readers. a.) Those looking for reviews of a specific book; b.) Those searching good reviews for something new to read.

Here is my solution:

 Now on with the TTT!

It's been awhile since I've played with one of these book memes from The Broke and the Bookish, but unfinished finished series are kind of my kryptonite.

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
I've read the first two books of this series so far and I love them. Humor, magic, an undead skeleton detective-sorcerer, and a whole magic underworld in Dublin, Ireland. Plus some really cool cars. These are pretty fast reads. My plan is to grab the whole series and have myself a truly themed October TBR.
Then perhaps I can finally make my sister and my all-things-Derek-Landy-and-Skulduggery buddy Georgina over at BritishBiblioholic proud.

Finnegan Zwake by Michael Dahl
This is an out of print middle grade mystery series that I got for Hanukkah last year and -to my everlasting shame- still have not finished. I've read three of the five books. Hopefully this series will be the rest of my October TBR. I have a thing about mysteries in October, since my family never really did Halloween. I also have a thing about overestimating the amount of books I can read in a month. Have you noticed?

Hero's Guide series by Christopher Healy
For how much I completely adored the first book in this series (see review) I haven't read the other two yet.

*shameshameshameshameshame*

Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
I own the first five books of this series and read the first one about six or seven years ago. I really enjoyed it. The primary reason I haven't read more is length. This is a series that needs to be read together, so I'm going to designate a year to read them. At some point. Yeah.

Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz
I'm getting through this series slowly but surely. It seems like every six months or so I pick up the next one, but the story line is starting to be become interconnected enough that I don't think that will work anymore. I dislike ghost stories and a lot of stuff dealing with the supernatural and books with overly depressing events. Odd Thomas has a mix of all three of these, and somehow Dean Koontz makes it not only palatable, but enjoyable, writing with a quirky sense of humor and a veil of mystery around the supernatural elements that has yet to get old.

The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica by James A. Owen
This is another series best read all at once. I've read the first two books, but so far apart that it was pretty jumbled and confusing. It's a really interesting idea and definitely something I need to finish once I carve out some time to do so.

The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn
I literally just finished the second book, Dark Force Rising. At 1am this morning. I couldn't sleep until I finished it and WHERE'S THE NEXT BOOK?!

GIVE ME THE LAST BOOOOOOOKKKK!!!

The Missing series by Margaret Peterson Haddix
This series I intentionally haven't finished. I could tell this was one that needed to be read all at once, so I was waiting until it was finished. Well, the final book came out this past year, so... *looks for empty slot on TBR*

The Ink series by Cornelia Funke
I really have no excuse for not having finished this one yet.

The Dream Keepers series by Mikey Brooks
I'm going to read these before Mikey strangles me. I swear. So many friends have recommended this series and I have absolutely no excuse for not finishing it yet. This will be one of my September reads. In fact, let me move it over to my 'Currently Reading' shelf right now...

Thanks for stopping by! To finish this off, may I present you with a photograph of my aforementioned 'Currently Reading' shelf. These are all the titles I (laughably) hope to read this month.