Ó hAoḋa

The Books I Read in January & February 2026

Introduction§

Over the past few months, I have been making an effort to regain the rate of reading that I once had as a child, and in the process of doing so I thought that it might be nice to document the books that I complete each month so that I can keep a record of the books that I have read, reflect on my experience reading, and make recommendations about them.

I try to broaden my horizons where possible when reading, so none of the books listed below are to be taken as recommendations from me about their contents or their authors, unless explicitly stated. However, in an effort to prevent any serious misinterpretation of my opinions, I have opted to exclude any books that could be considered particularly objectionable from the list below: I have opted not to include in this list the manifesto of an African dictator which I read in the past month, so as not to allow any room for misunderstanding, and I will continue this practice with future reviews if I feel the inclusion a certain book could give rise to any regrettable conclusions.

I would prefer to have given a monthly review, but seeing as this idea only occurred to me in February, I am combining both of the first two months of the year; incidentally, this works out nicely, as my reading velocity in January wasn’t as good as in February. Whether or not I continue this habit of giving a monthly review of my reading into the future shall remain to be seen, depending on both my reading output and me having the free time and motivation to put together another such blog post. Perhaps I will continue in bimonthly¹ instalments: who knows?

My great fear with documenting my reading progress like this is that it will encourage poor habits with the perverse incentive of “number of books completed per month”, dissuading me from engaging critically with the text or reading lengthy tomes, and instead opting for light novels and surface-level readings. If I suspect that this is beginning to negatively influence my reading habits, I will abandon any recording of my reading progress, and return to reading simply for reading’s sake.

The books listed below are those I finished in this two-month period; two—indicated with an asterisk^*—were started before the New Year. The books are listed in reverse order of completion, that is, the first title listed below is the one I most recently finished. As I said before, my reading velocity in January was poor, so out of the 9 books below, only 3 were completed in January, with all those from The Myth of Sisyphus onward being completed in February.

Tao Teh Ching – Lao Tzu§

Tao Teh Ching was my first introduction to the field of Taoism, and therefore, I am confident in saying that I don’t have anything of worth to say on the subject. Nonetheless, I found it to be an interesting read, and enjoyed the usual surface-level comparisons of the Tao of Laozi with the λόγος (Logos) of Aristotlean and Christian philosophy, particularly that of the Neo-Platonists. Living in accordance with the Tao seems to me to be comparable to the Stoic ideal of living in accordance with Nature (in the sense of Nature not as the inartificial state of the world as un-interfered with by man as in the modern view of the word, but as in (what I am told is) the ancient sense of the word, as the positive and generative flow of the universe — regardless of whether man or beasts align with this). Similarly, I wonder if the non-doing of Wu Wei could be meaningfully compared to the Christian practice of meekness and cheek-turning. I definitely ought to read more on Taoism in the future.

The Path to Freedom – Michael Collins§

A collection of writings by the Irish revolutionary Michael Collins (Míċeál Ó Coileáin²), that any Irishman would be hard-pressed to not find moving. A fascinating glimpse into the period of history concerning the Anglo-Irish War of Independence and subsequent Civil War. Proof of the skill and eloquence of Collins’ speech, and rife with an inspirational hope for a free, equal, and prosperous Irish future. Filled with arguments for the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty so compelling that they would give even the most ardent of Irregulars pause; his deeply persuasive rhetoric and palpable burning desire for peace are not easily dismissed. Extraordinarily moving, and a must-read for anyone with the slightest interest in Ireland’s past, or indeed, her future.

The book contains a great number of memorable quotes, but my particular favourite is:

The English Die-hards said to Mr. Lloyd George and his Cabinet: “You have surrendered”. Our own Die-hards said to us: “You have surrendered.” There is a simple test. Those who are left in possession of the battlefield have won.

Of course, there are times where the careful reader can detect that Collins is using the power of his rhetoric to strong-arm the reader into a particular view, in a way that might not be considered entirely fair. For example, a critic of the Anglo-Irish Treaty would point that in the above quote alone there is a tacit confession that the British have won in the North. One must be aware when reading that Collins is an exceptional rhetorician — and therefore is to be examined carefully.

Madonna in a Fur Coat – Sabahattin Ali§

I picked this book out on a whim in a Belfast bookshop, not knowing anything about its contents beyond it being a novel about love, set in Berlin; I wanted to seed my backlog of books with some light novels to help facilitate the ramp-up of my reading velocity. A compelling read, and an interesting vignette of an incredibly meek—but nonetheless compelling—Turkish man and his hopeless love for a painter from Berlin.

Originally written in Turkish, the version I read was translated by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe, who (so much as I can tell), seem to have done a good job. The edition I have has a foreword written by a man named David Selim Sayers, which contains some of the worst trite and downright drivel I have had the misfortune of reading in quite some time, including the description of a character’s childhood sexual experiences as “thrilling” and the use of the incorrect form of a very basic idiom that shouldn’t have made it past the squiggly blue line in his word processor, much less a professional Editor. If you have the same edition, don’t let the introduction dissuade you: the book itself is actually quite good.

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks – Benedicta Ward§

A timeless collection of monastic anecdotes and aphorisms, teaching how to live a godly life through discipline, denial of the flesh, and resistance against temptation. What struck me most about the sayings of these extremely hardy men and women, who are willingly subjecting themselves to the most brutal and harsh of conditions, is the tenderness and gentleness they show in recognising the struggles of others, and picking up others when they fall rather than shaming them. Saintly examples of refusing to judge your fellow sinner, and letting he who is without sin cast the first stone.

The focus on humility in particular in the sayings is interesting, as the Desert Fathers won’t accept praise even for their most righteous acts lest they become proud. Indeed, the only exception to their refusal to judge others, is their brutal take-downs of those they suspect of the sin of Pride (because, I suppose, Pride is the only sin that can be cured with shame); in saying 21 of Chapter 8 Nothing Done for Show, a monk merely publicly states among his brothers that he does not eat cooked food—not even a brag, just a statement—and is rebuked by another brother, saying:

It would have been better for you to eat meat today in your cell than to have heard this said in front of many brothers.

I found Saying 3 in Chapter 18 Visions particularly interesting, as it deals with a primitive form of the transubstantiation versus consubstantiation³ debate, and declares belief in consubstantiation heretical; I hadn’t realised how old this issue truly is — I had naïvely assumed it was only a couple of centuries old, dating from the Protestant Reformation, not as old as monasticism itself.

They begged him, saying, “You mustn’t say that, abba; according to what the Catholic Church has handed down to us, even so do we believe, that is to say, this bread is the Body of Christ in very truth, and is not a mere symbol…”

Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre§

I was gifted a copy of Nausea by my girlfriend at Christmas, and certainly with my interest in the writings of Camus, it would be remiss not to venture into the world of his contemporary Sartre. Nausea is a masterful depiction of depersonalisation and derealisation as the protagonist grapples with the emptiness of his quotidian existence. However, the existential ending of the novel seems a pale and colourless answer to the darkness evoked in the earlier pages; no doubt knowingly done, it nonetheless feels as though Sartre is describing a disease to which Camus, not he, is the answer. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I would dismiss my opinions here as philosophically naïve (and it’s entirely possible that they are), but I would propose that Sartre’s Existentialism can be dismissed with the same mechanism with which Nietzsche dismissed other empty philosophies: knocking on idols with a hammer to see if they’re hollow. And when one knocks on Sartre’s Existentialism, it answers with an empty ring.

Nonetheless, Nausea is a certainly a must-read, and I would thoroughly recommend.

The Myth of Sisyphus^* – Albert Camus§

I’ve enjoyed the writing of Camus for some time now; he hasn’t been as influential on me as Nietzsche was when I was a teenager, but he writes artistic and enjoyable novels, and although I feel his philosophical insight isn’t massively interesting when compared to someone like Nietzsche, his philosophy is good wholesome stuff. The Myth of Sisyphus is his most direct laying-down of his Absurdist philosophy, which I suppose I would subscribe to, although I don’t feel that it really adds enough to Nihilism to call it a distinct philosophy — just a mode of viewing Nihilism. I have somehow yet to read Nietzsche’s Will to Power, so I will refrain from commenting too much on issues I know little about, but it doesn’t seem to me that Camus really builds much on Nietzschean philosophy. The (semi-)popular view of Nietzsche as an Existentialist is one that I would reject; I would, perhaps controversially, view him as a mode of Nihilist. Absurdism seems to me to just be a mode of Nietzschean Nihilism.

On the other hand, I view Camus’ work as a healthy antidote to the hollow Existentialism that Sartre pushed; there’s a healthiness and a robustness to Absurdist thought that Existentialism (in my view) fails to create. The Existentialist idea of “creating your own meaning” to replace the meaninglessness of reality is empty: that “meaning” is equally meaningless. The only winning move in the meaning game is to refuse to play, as Camus does. I think Camus has a slightly edgy view where he emphasises the important of “revolt” against the meaninglessness of life and enjoys this aesthetic; I suppose I simply don’t care that life is meaningless, as opposed to wanting to “revolt” against anything.

Not as interesting a read in my eyes as Camus’ other works (like The Stranger, A Happy Death, and The Plague), but certainly worth the read, and the philosophy laid out therein is, in my eyes, more or less the correct way to view life.

How the Irish Saved Civilisation – Thomas Cahill§

Despite its bold title, How the Irish Saved Civilisation is a surprisingly accurate historical account of the Gaelic Christian mission to Europe. A worthwhile read, as I think it nicely debunks some odd talking points that one is likely to encounter in modern discourse about the history of Ireland — namely by showing that Ireland’s conversion was, unlike that of most other nations, voluntary and peaceful, and that Ireland didn’t meaningfully have a “Dark Age” like that of the rest of Europe (not withstanding post-Renaissance debates on whether or not there was actually a Dark Age). Despite going into this book expecting it to be a somewhat chauvinistic and excessively proud account of Irish history based off its title, there are times in the book where one feels the author is trying hard to combat this perception by going too far in the other direction in his put-downs of barbaric ancient Gaels. However, if one is prepared to critically assess the contents as they read it, they can expect an interesting and edifying account of the much-neglected role Ireland played in European history.

The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien§

The Third Policeman is a delightfully bizarre and unpredictable fever dream; seemingly completely nonsensical, it follows a more-or-less coherent plot, and unlike other works which use absurdity as an end unto itself, the surreality of the story actually all makes sense in the end — not that a reader would ever suspect that it would, or even could. It follows a man on his quest in an unnatural and other-worldly Irish village, the next one over from his own, on a quest for a missing moneybox, the owner of which he had beaten to death with a spade, and his interaction with the policemen of that village as he attempts to trick them into helping him to find it so that he might fund his passion project book on the fictional polymath De Selby, whose fantastical life and achievements sometimes span pages worth of footnotes.

I picked up this book not knowing anything about its contents, but knowing that Flann O’Brien was a writer who (although I had read little of his work) enjoyed greatly, and was one of the sharpest Irish wits of the 20^th century (and indeed you could remove both the “Irish” and “20^th century” qualifiers from that sentence).

Zorba the Greek^* – Nikos Kazantzakis§

Zorba the Greek is the portrait of a character who is more a force of Nature than a man. The book follows the narrator, a bookish man who is notably detached from “real life”, and his newfound friend Zorba, a man who lives life with such a passion and lack of detachment that it often seems as though he has no regard for anything but the present moment, in their mining project on the island of Crete. The book shows the classic struggle of an author between a love of words and a desire to experience life through literature juxtaposed with the separation that this practice puts between the writer and life itself. Zorba is the kind of man that has no appreciation for literature, and is rather the kind of man about whom literary types write, but cannot become, separated from reality by their love of the abstraction of words. Zorba is the picture of Nietzschean vitality, and the comparison between him and the narrator is that of Nietzsche’s Dionysian and Apollonian.

In a way, I find the book reminiscent of the views expressed by 三島 由紀夫 (Mishima Yukio) in his essay Sun and Steel, in which the author compares his detached, childhood love of words with his newfound practical love of reality itself, unencumbered by abstraction and description. Indeed, Mishima’s anxiety about having missed out on his opportunity to perform his patriotic duty⁴ in the military during the war is echoed⁵ in the contrast between the narrator’s friend Stavridakis who has gone off to fight the Bolsheviks and the narrator’s staying-put in Greece. This separation between the writer and reality can be seen over and over in a large number of books beyond Sun and Steel, like in Nausea between the un-reality of Roquentin’s life and the richness of the historical life of the Marquis de Rollebon — just to name those which are at the top of my mind.

The subhuman treatment of women throughout this book, however, can make it difficult to enjoy; one hardly expects a perfect feminist utopia in a book from 1946, but there is some particularly disturbing abuse of women in this book. Although probably standard, if not progressive, for Greek society during that period, it is nonetheless distinctly unpleasant at times for the modern reader (although not, in fairness, always without self-awareness — there is some recognition of this mistreatment within the text).

In a way, I feel that the ending of Zorba the Greek echoes that of Madonna in a Fur Coat; I couldn’t go into more detail without spoiling either, but I think someone who has read both can appreciate the shared theme.