The Isolation Lucky Dip Reading List by @TheresaSmithWrites

I’ve never been one for reading to lists but I recently saw a post somewhere (could be Twitter, Facebook or on my WordPress reader) about a list of books to read while in isolation. I honestly don’t need a list – there are, without exaggeration, hundreds of books here in my house just waiting to be read. But I didn’t click on the link when I saw this post as I was in a bit of a hurry, and now I can’t find it. Searching for it led me down a bit of a list rabbit hole and after reading countless best books of all time and books to read before you die lists, I decided to make my own.

Many of these lists just keep banging on about the same old classics, many of which I’ve read, and whole lot of which I don’t want to. But I wanted something more contemporary. Again, these lists contain many books I’ve already read along with some that I’d be quite content to die without having ever read. So, with a paper and pen by my side, I have come up with my own list of twenty books, a kind of pick a mix from the many lists I combed over with dissatisfaction. Any more than twenty books would likely see me ignoring it.

1. All that I Am by Anna Funder

2. Atonement by Ian Mc Ewan

3. The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

4. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

5. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

6. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

7. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

8. Beloved by Toni Morrison

9. The Secret History by Donna Tartt

10. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

11. Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kinsolver

12. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

13. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

14. Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres

15. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

16. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

17. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

18. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

19. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

20. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell