I is for Ironmonger (A-Z Challenge 2026) 10/4/26

The A-Z home page can be found here.

My theme this year is authors that I've read. More about the books I've read than the authors themselves.

I'm an avid reader. I'm a member of 2 in person reading groups through my local library. I'm gradually working my way through an old BBC reading list of 100 books (I'm about half way through) and I'm taking part in the online 52 Book Club Challenge for the third time this year where the challenge is to read 52 books over the year based on 52 different prompts. You can also find me on Goodreads here.

The I authors I've read are:

• Ironmonger John
• Irving John
• Ishiguro Kazuo
• Ivey Eowyn

Well that's a short list and between those 4 authors I've only read 6 books so Irving takes the prize this time.

I read Ishiguro's "Never let me go" a while back so it doesn't even have a rating or review on my Goodreads page.  I remember I found it disturbing but the fact that I had to look at other reviews on Goodreads to remember more about it shows it probably wasn't a 5* book for me.  

John Ironmonger's "Not forgetting the Whale" was a magazine book recommendation I read back in 2016.  I can't remember too much about it other than that the main character was a man running away from a disastrous work situation and ending up on a beach.  Also ending up on the beach was a whale.  It wasn't my usual sort of read but I clearly enjoyed it as I gave it 4*.

A more recent read was The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.

I loved this book.  It’s a fairy tale for adults filled with joy and sadness.  It also beautifully outlines the harshness of Alaska and the difficulties early settlers faced.  It details the relationships between husband and wife and parents and child as they battle to make a life for themselves in the brutal climate.

And now to Irving. I've read 3 of his books.

1) "A Widow for One Year" 

To say this is a story about a woman (Ruth) who had been a widow for one year wouldn't be wrong but the book is about so much more than that.  The book details Ruth's life but also covers much of her parents' lives and more.  Irving includes in his book whole sections that feel superfluous to Ruth's story.  He writes paragraphs where many writers would use a sentence.

I'm not sure if I think Irving is a great writer but he's definitely clever.  The book isn't a page turner like a thriller would be but I did want to keep going and find out how things turned out for Ruth and the other characters in the book.  He's also not shy about including details of the sexual relationships of his characters and indeed in this book there is a lot of information about the Red Light district of Amsterdam.  This might not be to everyone's taste.

2)  "A Prayer for Owen Meany".

It took me a month to read this book!  John Irving does not mince his words.  This is the story of Owen Meany, a small person with a strange voice and a calling.  

It's the 3rd book by Irving that I've read and although they've all impressed me they've all felt too long.  This is a very slow story of Owen Meany's life as told by his best friend John Wainwright.  I'd like to say it gathers momentum to a satisfying ending but it doesn't.  Irving takes his time.  He goes into great detail about everything.  Set in America there is a lot of information about the Vietnam war and what was going on in America around that time.   But the events revolving around Owen Meany are in the past for the narrator so we also get his views on American politics in the 1980s.  There is also a lot about religion in the book, particularly the different churches in America.

I'm glad I made it to the end but it wasn't a compelling read for me.  I hate giving up on books so I persevered.  I've given it 4 stars because I couldn't in all honesty recommend it for reading without a lot of caveats but the way Irving pulls this story together is impressive.

Looking at my review of Owen Meany I had to check out which other book of his I'd read as it wasn't listed on my Goodreads page!  Turned out to be "The World According to Garp".  Another tome.

Are you good with reading long books or would they be a non starter for you?