Keep Calm and Read a Good Book

Posted by martin.parnell |
Keep Calm and Read a Good Book

With the current COVID-19 pandemic affecting all parts of society, I thought I’d write a blog unrelated to business, but of a rather more general subject.

In these times of working from home and self-isolating, many of us have to look to how to fill our leisure times that doesn’t require contact with others. No more frequenting the gym, the cinema, our favourite restaurants and bars. 

One activity that many of us enjoy but often wish we could spend more time doing is reading. Now may be the time to take advantage of more time on our hands and hit that book pile. 

If, by any chance, you tend to read the same genre and are looking for something a little different, I thought I’d’ make a list and offer up some ideas. However, my wife, Sue is a more avid reader than I am and so I thought I’d pass this over to her and ask her to come up with some titles: 

Sue’s suggestions: 

 Fiction 

 Title                                                                       Author                                      

                                   

  • The Cuckoos Calling                                       Robert  Galbraith 
  • The Children Act                                            Ian McEwan
  • A Complicated Kindness                                 Miriam Toews
  • The Invention of Wings                                  Sue Monk Kidd
  • Flowers for Algernon                                      Daniel Keyes
  • The Child Finder                                            Rene Denfeld                 
  • The Shadow of the Wind                                Carlos Ruiz  Zafon
  • Deadly Virtues                                               Jo Bannister
  • The End of the Line                                        Stephen Legault
  • Perfume                                                        Patrick Suskind
  • Incendiary                                                     Chris Cleave
  • 11/22/63                                                       Stephen King

For murder mysteries, anything by Henning Mankell, Linwood Barclay or Michael Connelly. 

Non-fiction

Title                                                                            Author 

  • Dead Wake                                                      Erik Larson 
  • Isaac’s Storm                                                   Erik Larson 
  • Seabiscuit                                                        Laura Hillenbrand
  • The Underground Girls of Kabul                         Jenny Nordberg        
  • All Over But The Shoutin’                                  Rick Bragg
  • Mennonite in a Little Black Dress                        Rhoda Janson

 

Humour 

Title                                                                             Author  

  • A Spot of Bother                                                Mark Haddon
  • Blott on the Landscape                                       Tom Sharpe
  • A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine             Marina Lewycka 

 

Classics

Title                                                                            Author 

  • Tess of the D’Urbavilles                                     Thomas Hardy 
  • The Black Tulip                                                 Alexander Dumas
  • Gulliver’s Travels                                              Jonathan Swift 
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles                           Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
  • Madame Bovary                                               Gustave   Flaubert 
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray                                Oscar Wilde 
  • The Stepford Wives                                          Ira Levin   

 

And so many more, it’s very hard to select just a few.

Hope this gives you a few ideas. Keep well and read on!

comments powered by Disqus