Top Books to Read when you are in Quarantine

With the recent news of the Coronavirus outbreak, many people have been in quarantine or self-isolation. One of the best ways to pass the time would be to read a book. We have come up with what we think are the best books to read in that Genre. Have a look at the list below to see our top books to read when you are in quarantine.

Top 5 Novellas

1. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck – They are an unlikely pair: George is “small and quick and dark of face”; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a “family,” clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California’s dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfilment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie against the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie’s unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.
2. Animal Farm, George Orwell – “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
3. The Grownup, Gillian Flynn – A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behaviour, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the “psychic” visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan’s terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles, Susans teenage stepson, doesn’t help matters with his disturbing manner and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be done to escape it. The Grownup, which originally appeared as What Do You Do? in George R. R. Martins Rogues anthology, proves once again that Gillian Flynn is one of the worlds most original and skilled voices in fiction.
4. The Stranger, Albert Camus – Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed -the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.- First published in 1946; now in a new translation by Matthew Ward.
5. The Vegetarian, Han Kang – Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams–invasive images of blood and brutality–torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiralling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her but also from herself.

Top 5 Novels

1. 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell – ‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’.Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal. George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps the most pervasively influential book of the twentieth century.
2. Lord of the Flies, William Golding – A plane crashes on an uninhabited island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land of bright fantastic birds and dark blue seas, but at night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast.
3. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess – Fifteen-year-old Alex likes lashings of ultraviolence. He and his gang of friends rob, kill and rape their way through a nightmarish future until the State puts a stop to his riotous excesses. But what will his re-education mean?A dystopian horror, a black comedy, an exploration of choice, A Clockwork Orange is also a work of exuberant invention which created a new language for its characters.
4. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens – Dickens’s epic, the exuberant novel is one of the greatest coming-of-age stories in literature. It chronicles David Copperfield’s extraordinary journey through life, as he encounters villains, saviours, eccentrics and grotesques, including the wicked Mr Murdstone, stout-hearted Peggotty, formidable Betsey Trotwood, impecunious Micawber and odious Uriah Heep.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee – A lawyer’s advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee’s classic novel – a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man’s struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.To Kill a Mockingbird is a coming-of-age story, an anti-racist novel, a historical drama of the Great Depression and a sublime example of the Southern writing tradition.

Top 5 Poetry Books

1. Portable Paradise, Roger Robinson – Winner of the TS Elliot Prize, these are finely crafted poems, that reveal Roger Robinson s capacity to tell involving stories and capture the essence of a character in a few words, to move the emotions with the force of verbal expression, and engage our thoughts, as in the sequence of poems that reflect on just what paradise might be. A Portable Paradise is a feast to be carried by lovers of poetry wherever they go.
2. Poems to Fall in Love With, Chris Riddell – Chris’s follow-up to one of the Bookseller‘s best poetry books of the last 25 years, Poems to Live Your Life By, celebrates love in all its guises, from silent admiration through passion to tearful resignation. These poems speak of the universal experiences of the heart and are brought to life with Chris’s exquisite, intricate artwork.
3. Tell Me the Truth About Life, Cerys Matthews – Tell Me the Truth About Life is an indispensable anthology which celebrates poetry s power to tap into the truths that matter. Curated and introduced by Cerys Matthews, this collection draws on the wisdom of crowds: featuring poems nominated for their insight into truth by a range of ordinary and extraordinary people: from Britain s first astronaut, Helen Sharman, to sporting heroes and world-famous musicians, teachers, artists and politicians.
4. Milk and Honey, Rupi Kaur – The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.
5. 2am Thoughts – Makenzie Campbell – I met you at dusk. We loved till midnight.  Then, you left me. 2am found me at my lowest.  When the sun came up, I dried my tears, found my strength, and went on with my day. The poetry of 2am Thoughts condenses an entire relationship with its untamed emotions and experiences to a single day. As the long hours of the night drag on, so does the love, heartache, and loss. When the dawn breaks, the morning sun brings acceptance, healing, and recovery.

Top 5 Mind, Body and Spirit Books

1. The Art of Happiness, Dalai Lama – In this unique and important book, one of the world’s great spiritual leaders offers his practical wisdom and advice on how we can overcome everyday human problems and achieve lasting happiness.The Art of Happiness is a highly accessible guide for a western audience, combining the Dalai Lama’s eastern spiritual tradition with Dr Howard C. Cutler’s western perspective. Covering all key areas of human experience, they apply the principles of Tibetan Buddhism to everyday problems and reveal how one can find balance and complete spiritual and mental freedom.
2. 12 Rules for Life, Jordan B. Peterson – Jordan Peterson has helped millions of people, young and old, men and women, aim at a life of responsibility and meaning. Now he can help you. Drawing on his own work as a clinical psychologist and on lessons from humanity’s oldest myths and stories, Peterson offers twelve profound and realistic principles to live by. After all, as he reminds us, we each have a vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. Deep, rewarding and enlightening, 12 Rules for Life is a lifeboat built solidly for stormy seas: ancient wisdom applied to our contemporary problems.If you are interested in Jordan B Peterson, Imprint Academic has recently published a title – Myth, Meaning, and Antifragile Individualism which explores Jordan’s views in detail.
3. Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins – For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare – poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse coloured his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a US Armed Forces icon and one of the world’s top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him The Fittest (Real) Man in America. In Can’t Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.
4. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse, Charlie Macksey – Enter the world of Charlie’s four unlikely friends, discover their story and their most important life lessons. The conversations of the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse have been shared thousands of times online, recreated in school art classes, hung on hospital walls and turned into tattoos. In Charlie’s first book, you will find his most-loved illustrations and some new ones too.
5. Mindfullness, Mark Williams – MINDFULNESS reveals a set of simple yet powerful practices that can be incorporated into daily life to help break the cycle of unhappiness, stress, anxiety and mental exhaustion and promote genuine joie de vivre. It’s the kind of happiness that gets into your bones. It seeps into everything you do and helps you meet the worst that life can throw at you with new courage. The book is based on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). MBCT revolves around a straightforward form of mindfulness meditation which takes just a few minutes a day for the full benefits to be revealed. MBCT has been clinically proven to be at least as effective as drugs for depression and it is recommended by the UK’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence – in other words, it works.

Top 5 Biographies

1. Behind the Mask, Tyson Fury – A Manchester lad from Irish Traveller stock, born three months premature and weighing just a pound at birth, Tyson (named after his father’s boxing hero) grew up to become one of the most unlikely heavyweight champions in history. This ‘dream come true’ soon turned to a nightmare, however, as alcohol and cocaine abuse took hold and Tyson was stripped of his titles. What followed was the darkest moment of his life – detailed in this book for the first time – in which he came within seconds of ending everything.
2. Becoming, Michelle Obama – In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America – the first African American to serve in that role – she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the United States and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments.
3. The Choice, Edith Eger – In 1944, sixteen-year-old ballerina Edith Eger was sent to Auschwitz. Separated from her parents on arrival, she endures unimaginable experiences, including being made to dance for the infamous Josef Mengele. When the camp is finally liberated, she is pulled from a pile of bodies, barely alive. The horrors of the Holocaust didn’t break Edith. In fact, they helped her learn to live again with a life-affirming strength and truly remarkable resilience.
4. This is Going to Hurt, Adam Kay – Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you. Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know and more than a few things you didn’t about life on and off the hospital ward.
5. Guy Martin, Guy Martin – Guy Martin, international road-racing legend, maverick star of the Isle of Man TT, truck mechanic and TV presenter, lives on the edge, addicted to speed, thoroughly exhilarated by danger. In this book, we’ll get inside his head as he stares death in the face, and risks his life in search of the next high. We’ll discover what it feels like to survive a 170mph fireball at the TT in 2010, and come back to do it all again. He’ll sweep us up in a gritty sort of glory as he slogs it out for a place on the podium, but we’ll also see him struggle with the flipside of fame.

Top 5 Investment Books

1. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert T. Kiyosaki – Rich Dad Poor Dad will….
   • Explode the myth that you need to earn a high income to become rich
   • Challenge the belief that your house is an asset
   • Show parents why they can’t rely on the school system to teach their kids about money
   • Define once and for all an asset and a liability
   • Teach you what to teach your kids about money for their future financial success

   Robert Kiyosaki has challenged and changed the way tens of millions of people around the world think about money. With perspectives that often contradict conventional wisdom, Robert has earned a reputation for straight talk, irreverence, and courage. He is regarded worldwide as a passionate advocate for financial education.

2. Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill – Napoleon Hill, America’s most beloved motivational author, devoted 25 years to finding out how the wealthy became that way. After interviewing over 500 of the most affluent men and women of his time, he uncovered the secret to great wealth based on the notion that if we can learn to think like the rich, we can start to behave like them. By understanding and applying the thirteen simple steps that constitute Hill’s formula, you can achieve your goals, change your life and join the ranks of the rich and successful.
3. Way of The Wolf, Jordan Belfort – Jordan Belfort – immortalized by Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit movie The Wolf of Wall Street – reveals the step-by-step sales and persuasion system proven to turn anyone into a sales-closing, money-earning rock star.For the first time ever, Jordan Belfort opens his playbook and gives readers access to his exclusive step-by-step system-the same system he used to create massive wealth for himself, his clients, and his sales teams. Until now this revolutionary program was only available through Jordan’s $1,997 online training. Now in WAY OF THE WOLF, Belfort is ready to unleash the power of persuasion to a whole new generation of readers, revealing how anyone can bounce back from devastating setbacks, master the art of persuasion, and build wealth.
4. Unshakeable, Tony Robbins – Robbins, who has coached more than 50 million people from 100 countries, is the world’s number-one life and business strategist. In this book, he teams up with Peter Mallouk, the only man in history to be ranked the number-one financial advisor in the United States for three consecutive years by Barron’s. Together they reveal how to become unshakeable – someone who can not only maintain true peace of mind in a world of immense uncertainty, economic volatility, and unprecedented change but profit from the fear that immobilizes so many.
5. The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas J. Stanley – The bestselling The Millionaire Next Door identifies seven common traits that show up again and again among those who have accumulated wealth. Most of the truly wealthy in this country don’t live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue-they live next door.

Top 5 Travel & Adventure

1. Born to Run, Christopher McDougall – At the heart of Born to Run lies a mysterious tribe of Mexican Indians, the Tarahumara, who live quietly in canyons and are reputed to be the best distance runners in the world; in 1993, one of them, aged 57, came first in a prestigious 100-mile race wearing a toga and sandals. A small group of the world’s top ultra-runners (and the awe-inspiring author) make the treacherous journey into the canyons to try to learn the tribe’s secrets and then take them on over a course 50 miles long.
2. It’s on the Meter, Paul Archer – When three friends – Paul, Johno and Leigh – clicked ‘buy’ on an iconic London cab, little did they know what they were letting themselves in for. Leaving the Big Smoke in their taxi bound for Sydney, the lads began a 43,000-mile trip that would take them off the beaten track to some of the most dangerous and deadly places on earth. By the time they arrived home, they would manage against all the odds to circumnavigate the globe and break two world records. From altercations with the Iranian secret police to narrowly escaping the Taliban, the trio’s adventure is filled with hair-raising escapades. Feel the fear, revel in the fun and meet some of the hundred passengers the taxi picked up along the way, as the authors take you on their action-packed journey.
3. The Man Who Cycled The World, Mark Beaumont – On 15 February 2008, Mark Beaumont pedalled through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. 194 days and 17 hours previously, he had begun his attempt to circumnavigate the world in record time. Mark smashed the Guinness World Record by an astonishing 81 days. He had travelled more than 18,000 miles on his own through some of the harshest conditions one man and his bicycle can endure, camping wild at night and suffering from constant ailments.
4. Hell and High Water, Sean Conway – In June 2013 Sean Conway set out from Land’s End in his bid to be the first person to swim the length of Britain. It was a challenge so extreme that not only had it never been attempted before but most of the sponsor’s Sean approached turned him down as they were worried that he would die trying. Landlocked Cheltenham – Sean’s hometown – isn’t really the ideal place to train for a long sea swim, and he only managed three miles in a local pool before setting off from Land’s End. Once in the water, Sean had to develop incredible mental strength to deal with the extreme cold and hours alone. He also needed to devise ways to take on the huge number of calories he needed to sustain him. On the support boat, he and his three-man crew had to cope with storms, seasickness and living in close proximity for months. After taking a few jellyfish stings to the face, Sean decided to grow a huge beard to protect himself.
5. How Not to Travel the World, Lauren Juliff – ‘I had no life experience, zero common sense and had never eaten rice. I suffered from debilitating anxiety, was battling an eating disorder and had just had my heartbroken. I thought by leaving to travel the world I would instantly become a glamorous and savvy backpacker…’ But somehow Lauren’s travels were full of bad luck and near-death experiences. Over the space of two years, instead of finding herself, she lost a laptop, a camera, £1,000 and some teeth. She was caught up in a tsunami, sat beside a dead woman for six hours and experienced a very unhappy ending during a massage in Thailand. But repeatedly being forced out of her pea-sized comfort zone helped Lauren realise that she was stronger than she once thought and, learning how NOT to travel the world was the most enlightening experience she could have hoped for.