Reading Ireland Month (The #Begorrathon) will return for the twelveth year during March 2026, although this will be my eighth year. It is hosted by Cathy at 746 Books.Cathy is a big supporter of everything Irish. Check out her page and you’ll find all kinds of suggestions for reading, listening, or music on her spotify list. Of course, I always recommend my favorite Irish podcast, Marc Gunn’s Irish and Celtic Music Podcast.
Please use the hashtags #readingirelandmonth26 or #begorrathon26 if you plan to participate.
Yes, we do tend to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in grandiose style in the US with parades, pub specials and green beer, corned beef and cabbage. And as I’ve mentioned before, in “Chicago-land” they turn the Chicago River green. You might think that represents a good-sized population of Irish folks or Irish descendants and you would be right!
I always include the post I wrote years ago following one of our more interesting St Patrick’s Days, titled Beans, Beans…(A St Patrick’s Day Revisited). Check it out if you haven’t seen it before.
I usually try for one ebook a week, an audiobook or two, and again this year looked for movies or series I can glean from our lone streaming service, Netflix. Not that many this year and of the ones listed, only found a few. Perhaps you can find them on your own streamer.
MOVIES
To be viewed in no particular order:
Waking the Titanic – In 1912, fourteen Irish immigrants from Addergoole, County Mayo, embarked on the Titanic’s ill-fated maiden voyage to seek work in America. ‘Muintir Maigh Eo ar an Titanic’ (Documentary)
We do have fun with this every year and it seems to get me out there researching and finding stuff I had no idea was available. Hope you’ll enjoy a book or one of these movies and if you do, I’d love to know.
Around here, March can’t decide whether lion or lamb, so one day will be sunny, warm and 62 degrees and the next cloudy, cold, windy and a high of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. The first week of March is forecasted for just that—snow by Monday, t-shirts by Friday. Nice we can enjoy so many activities indoors now with our participation in the YMCA. They’ve got an amazing facility as long as the weather allows us to get there. Pickleball? No…we used to play racquetball. (I loved racquetball but it got a bit rough.)
The Y started a six-week course in food preparation for seniors who face health issues and I started that, thinking I could always learn something new, especially in regard to the CEs cardiac issues. About the same time, the CE started working with our son again this year for the AARP tax program normally held on Saturdays at the library during tax season. This year on taxes on Friday has forced us to change our exercise schedule.
You might remember that in the January Recap, I mentioned the quest to find and understand the welcome uptick in visits and views. I spent quite a bit of time working on SEO, creating the SiteMap for the website, and following all the Google guides and site verification services I could find or implement. Apparently, there had been a problem in there that when finally cleaned up and properly executed resulted in an amazing, albeit temporary surge in traffic.
My freebie doesn’t allow for Google Analytics or the SEO tools granted an upgrade or Business Plan. Still, March bears a best yet stat of 39K for the month, one day with over 11K, and an average now of 1.4K views per day. I’m pretty happy with that and working hard to keep or even improve on that, just sorry it took so many years to finally get it. Us older folks have to learn everything the hard way!
I have no idea how those figures compare with your own blogs and I am hoping it might constitute an average. Please let me know, or perhaps there is still something I should be doing?
The CE and I read or listened to a total of twelve books in February. As always, the major source of our books is the library (audiobooks as well as ebooks). We also find books in NetGalley and enjoy author and publisher requests. The links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase information.
Another book I’d have never chosen but was the Y Book Club of the Month, The Boys in the Boat. Yes, I enjoyed Nightshade but for sheer heart-stopping tension, I have to give it to The Boys.
My Reading Challenges page…I’m still having problems with the Goodreads Challenge tally, one total noted on my Goodreads landing page and another in the widget. Therefore, it’s either 25 completed so far in a challenge of 175 or 19 according to the widget. Getting it fixed obviously won’t happen. Challenge page is all caught up.
Last month I was looking for romantic book suggestions and this month it’s St. Patty’s Day suggestions. In March, I’m reading Irish — moody atmospheric landscapes, wit and wisdom delivered with a dark sense of humor, layered families, and stories that resonate. I’ll be scouring 746 Books for ideas but will gladly entertain your selections as well. Would love to see your recommendations—drop me a quick comment, please!
To all my dear readers and fellow bloggers, my blogging buddies, I do so appreciate your visits and comments and appreciate each and every one of you.
January kicked off the new year with frigid temps in NWI and appears to be continuing the trend into February. Not excited about any more snow and I might be thinking of heading south except the unusual record-breaking weather appears to be just as big a surprise there as here.
My little Frosty dog would have turned 20 on the 24th. I still miss her so much! In the meantime, I’ve been trying to capitalize on a few of Punkin’s natural movements by training her with “down” and “gimme 5.” She performs those just fine in the office when she wants more treats. Otherwise, she acts like my words are no more than blah, blah, blah.
ChatGPT
The first of a new year always brings the additional chores of opening new folders, adding categories, tags, checking and signing up for challenges, installing new links, and updating the menu. It’s a chore I’ve always struggled through and usually end up making irreversible mistakes: Like accidentally eliminating challenge pages.
In working on that and studying the stats, I noticed a general uptick in views the last six months of 2025 and certainly January was on a track to be my best month ever. That started a quest to figure out why—what was triggering it? I’d noticed before an email noting they had “indexed” that page. You may remember when I went on an SEO campaign last year. And no, I really didn’t understand the advantage of being indexed and didn’t subscribe to anything.
Great, but that got me started trying to figure out why or how to get indexed by Google, as I’ve labored all this time apparently without that benefit. Too late to go back to school for all this stuff and expensive to boot, it’s a big learning curve. Thought I needed a SiteMap for Google (maybe not). Now, I’m hopeful that I’ll see some real organic benefit soon, as I have little confidence in the over 23k views for the month of January and 93M views since I opened the website. While I’ll freely admit that although I started the blog in February 2012 for my grandfather’s books, it wasn’t until 2017 that I really switched into more of a read/review blog.
The CE and I reviewed a total of eleven books in January. As always, the major source of our books is the library (audiobooks as well as ebooks). We also find books in NetGalley and enjoy author and publisher requests. The links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase information.
I really enjoyed The Widow by John Grisham but the CE loved The Hunted by Steven Max Russo, so this month, I’ll bow to his five-star read.
Favorite for January – The Hunted by Steven Max Russo
My Reading Challenges page…This year I’m keeping my goal for Audiobooks at Marathoner level—50 and Goodreads at 175, but changed Historical Fiction to Ancient History at 25 (though I have a good start on that with five already and reducing NetGalley to Silver–25 .
I’ve updated my Reading Challenges page to install the new 2026 goals and pushed 2025 down one. It’s still not completely right but after awhile I get tired of the struggle. Bored with the whole format, but apparently limited to this theme now unless I upgrade. You know what they say about old dogs. Woof!
You can see the challenge widgets in my sidebar and each include the links for you to sign up as well. Now’s the time!
I’m looking for romantic book suggestions for February—yes, me. Would love to see your recommendations—drop me a quick comment, please!
To all my dear readers, I do so appreciate your visits and comments and look forward to seeing your new content each day.
Thanks to my daughter, Shannon, for her work with chatGPT!
If I don’t have yours yet, now’s your chance!
I know you probably listed your ten (or twelve?) favorites. But perhaps there was one that was just an edge outstanding.
That’s the one I want!
Running out of time, I need it before the 20th. Send your title to my website in the comments or the email addy noted in the About Me page. I’ll include your favorite book of 2025. (I noted mine in the December Recap.)
(N.B. I already have two responses naming the same book! Stay tuned to discover that title. Maybe yours also?)
As the dark clouds of war finally begin to break, Grace Fitzgerald and Richard Lewis glimpse the possibility of a future together after years of turmoil. Their hard-won love has withstood so much already.
Now, as the Allies launch their final assault on the European continent—determined to rid the world of Nazi terror at whatever cost—Grace must say goodbye once again. Richard has a dual mission: to witness and report on the invasion that will decide the world’s fate, and to fulfil a promise to find someone who vanished without a trace.
But in Richard’s absence, Grace faces her own reckoning. Drawn back to an old adversary, she must fight one final battle. Will their love survive not just the war, but the ghosts of their past?
My Review:
Hard to believe the journey that began with the toss of a bottle by distraught Grace Fitzgerald. Then the bottle with the note in it was found by the dog belonging to an equally disquieted Richard Lewis on one of his solitary walks along the coast.
Tis a long journey that belonged to the pen pals of nations across the pond from each other, one the victim of childhood polio in a small Irish village in Ireland, the other a man of family means and money.
The Knocknashee Story – Book 7
It’s only the spellbinding Irish storytelling pen of the author that the following years would be chronicled in a tale that would see Grace outliving her tyrannical older sister to find the strong, intelligent, and resourceful woman she becomes. Richard with his own pen, along with his Jewish buddy and rabid photographer, finds redemption as well as life-shattering journalistic experiences during the horrors of WWII.
It’s in this installment that Grace and Richard finally manage a short-celebrated wedding when he’s called immediately back to France to fulfill his last life-threatening assignment. There is egregious loss. The war conditions and the evil incarnate that Hitler ascribed to especially near the end when it became apparent of the German loss of the war painted gruesome scenes in the mind.
Grace, hampered by the mores of the time and the church, has learned how to deal with the church and Canon Rafferty specifically to achieve the safe custody of another victim. (The country and continent may change, but it’s remarkable how the people confront the same issues.)
The novel beautifully describes both locations, Savannah, Georgia, and the little town of Knocknashee—so like any little town in the US with the varied characters from scalawags to saintly. The characters are engaging and getting to know them a joy. It’s a deeply emotional narrative, pulling all the strings.
Can Richard safely return to Knocknashee? Can they ever settle into a real married life? What becomes of your favorite support characters? Can there be a happy ever after here?
Many thanks to the author for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.
The Author:Jean Grainger is a USA Today bestselling author with over 100,000 5* reviews of historical and contemporary Irish fiction. She is acclaimed for her authentic portrayal of Irish life and history. Born in Cork, she draws from her experience as a history lecturer, teacher, and tour guide to craft characters that feel like friends, and sometimes foes. Grainger’s works span multiple series and standalone novels, covering significant periods in recent Irish history, but told from the perspective of families, the humans behind the headlines. Her stories often intertwine historical events with personal journeys, exploring themes of family, friendship, and human resilience. Grainger’s writing style, characterized by its warmth and authenticity, has earned her comparisons to renowned Irish authors like Maeve Binchy. Her dedication to research and character development has resulted in a loyal readership who feel deeply connected to her stories and characters.
Yes, I did get my Goodreads stat data (I’d missed it’s arrival) and it shows 149 books read, 49,775 pages read. Oops!
I love to see the new numbers though there’s an error or two (again—i.e. Last Book of the Year was not How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley. It was Killing Me Softly by Sandie Jones on December 30.
Also, Goodreads shows Mark Twain by Ron Chernow as the longest book at 1,200 pages. I suppose the book was 1,200 pages, but the CE gave up at approximately 46%. The shortest book was The Builders by Maeve Binchy at 93 pages.
The real problem with showing 149 books read with 49,775 pages read, however, is that the landing page correctly showed 187 and the successful challenge of 150 books.So far this year, the landing page shows 4 books of a challenge of 175 books, but the widget zero. I have no idea why it stopped counting my books last year at 149 or why it’s failing to count my Challenge books this year.
Cathy is a big supporter of everything Irish. Check out her page and you’ll find all kinds of suggestions for reading, listening, or music on her spotify list. Of course, I always recommend my favorite Irish podcast, Marc Gunn’s Irish and Celtic Music Podcast.
Rosepoint Publishing 