My Year of Reading Welshly
Discovering Wales in 52 Books
Author(s) Alex Johnson
Language: English
Genre(s): Calon, Literary Criticism, Welsh Interest
- July 2025 · 240 pages ·216x135mm
- · Hardback - 9781915279781
- · eBook - epub - 9781915279804
- · eBook - pdf - 9781915279811
‘What should I read next?’ Alex Johnson invites you to join him on his year of reading Welshly on a warm and witty journey through 52 books from Wales and about Wales.
From novels to poetry to non-fiction, Alex explores a rich and eclectic spread of books. Covering famous favourites such as Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin’s Ivor the Engine, through to contemporary hits such as Manon Steffan Ros’s The Blue Book of Nebo and Tiffany Murray’s My Family and Other Rock Stars, Alex’s ‘Reading Welshly’ list spans decades and genres.
It’s not just about mines and farming (though there are plenty of those), but a window onto Welsh culture in all its complexity and diversity. Discover with Alex how Welsh books both reveal modern Wales and speak to universal themes of love, social struggle and identity.
Complete with discussion questions about each book and space to chart your own Reading Welshly progress, this is the ideal companion for readers and book groups to discover Wales through its rich and varied literature.
Introduction: Trying to solve some kind of problem
Book 1 Angels in anguish: The Battle to the Weak by Hilda Vaughan (1925)
Book 2 A question of marketing: In Parenthesis by David Jones (1937)
Book 3 O, there is lovely to feel a book: How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn (1939)
Book 4 As alien as Tibet: I Bought A Mountain by Thomas Firbank (1940)
Book 5 A Richard Burton favourite: Raiders’ Dawn by Alun Lewis (1942)
Book 6 A village of lace and stone: Poems by Lynette Roberts (1944)
Book 7 To begin at the beginning: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas (1954)
Book 8 Clint Eastwood of the spirit: Song at the Year’s Turning by R. S. Thomas (1955)
Book 9 Not lost in translation: Kate Roberts: Y Byw Sy’n Cysgu (The Awakening, previously The Living Sleep) 1956
Book 10 In short: A Toy Epic by Emyr Humphreys (1958)
Book 11 Coming home: Border Country by Raymond Williams (1960)
Book 12 Up on the Orme last night: Jampot Smith by Jeremy Brooks (1960)
Book 13 A world of high adventure!: The Shop in the Mountain by Showell Styles (1968)
Book 14 Perhaps the greatest Welsh novel: One Moonlit Night / Un Nos Ola Leuad by Caradog Prichard (1961)
Book 15 How we mourn: The Small Mine by Menna Gallie (1962)
Book 16 Creators and creations: The Twelve Dancers by William Mayne (1962)
Book 17 The thoughts of an islander: Tide-race by Brenda Chamberlain (1962)
Book 19 Flowers not birds: The Owl Service by Alan Garner (1967)
Book 20 A woman’s novel, a man’s novel: Travels with a Duchess by Menna Gallie (1968)
Book 21 Muck and Glory: So Long, Hector Bebb by Ron Berry (1970)
Book 22 A clandestinely-borrowed sausage van: Place of Stones by Ruth Janette Ruck (1961)
Book 23 A children’s book for adults: Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden (1973)
Book 24 The top left-hand corner: Ivor The Engine – Snowdrifts by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin (1977)
Book 25 Immanent structural contradictions: The Volunteers by Raymond Williams (1978)
Book 26 The wrong baby: The Sundial by Gillian Clarke (1978)
Book 27 Should I stay or should I go: On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin (1982)
Book 28 Only Connect: Brothers by Bernice Rubens (1983)
Intermission: Time for an ice cream
Book 29 Grumpy old men: The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis (1986)
Book 30 A kind of loving: Work, Sex and Rugby by Lewis Davies (1993)
Book 31 Off to a great start: Eucalyptus - Detholiad o Gerddi / Selected Poems 1978-1994 by Menna Elfyn (1995)
Book 32 Books in the running brooks: Tree of Crows by Lewis Davies (1996)
Book 33 Wheat is the head of the train? - Travels in an Old Tongue: Touring the World Speaking Welsh by Pamela Petro (1998)
Book 34 Cardiff Calling: Five Pubs, Two Bars and a Nightclub by John Williams (1999)
Book 35 Things Fall Apart: Grits by Niall Griffiths (2000)
Book 36 A small fire: The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi (2000)
Book 37 When druids go bad: Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcolm Pryce (2001)
Book 39 Another murder of crows: Martha, Jack and Shanco / Martha Jac a Sianco by Caryl Lewis (2007)
Book 40 Small is good: Fresh Apples by Rachel Trezise (2005)
Book 41 A search for a story: Running for the Hills by Horatio Clare (2006)
Book 42 Pushy parents: Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (2007)
Book 43 What if?: Resistance by Owen Shears (2007)
Book 44 Let’s hear it for Aunty Lol: The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan (2009)
Book 45 Nano-synaptic dream tablets: The Meat Tree by Gwyneth Lewis (2010)
Book 46 A blow to the head: The Dig by Cynan Jones (2014)
Book 47 English is sludgy: Pigeon by Alys Conran (2016)
Book 48 Brave New Wales: Twenty Thousand Saints by Fflur Dafydd (2008)
Book 49 Carnal lust: Water Shall Refuse Them by Laurie McKnight Hardy (2019)
Book 50 O! What a Lovely War: The Gododdin: Lament for the Fallen by Gillian Clarke (2021)
Book 51 It’s the end of the world as we know it: The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros (2022)
Book 52 Under the moon of love: My Family and Other Rock Stars by Tiffany Murray (2024)
Your Reading Welshly Challenge
Conclusion: They think it’s all over
Book club discussion questions
Welshly bibliography
Acknowledgements
