The Isolation Lucky Dip Reading List by @TheresaSmithWrites

/ Theresa Smith Writes

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

28 thoughts on “The Isolation Lucky Dip Reading List by @TheresaSmithWrites”

  1. A great list Theresa. Some I have read and loved, and others yet to read. I think there’s probably plenty of books in the world which I do not need to read before I die and some I wish I had never read and others which I might have enjoyed but didn’t read because I didn’t know about them. In the end, as long as we enjoy the books we do read, I think that’s all that matters.

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  3. I could happily read The Alchemist again. I recently bought The night circus, so that’s my pick else it’ll sit there for ages. I would like to read The Year of Wonder by Geraldine Brooks as Lisa Ireland says it’s one of her favourite novels.

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    • Even though I made the list without looking at my shelves, after, when I did look at my shelves, I could see I owned at least 15 of them already. So it will work to reading my own books too, for the most part. I used a combination of Dymocks, Washington Post, NY Times, Time Magazine, Oprah’s Book Club, and Barnes and Noble to make up the list.

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  5. What a great list! Year of Wonders is one of my absolute favourites, if not THE favourite! I just adore it, and have read it over and over. (Although given it’s a plague novel, perhaps not one to read right now? Or maybe it is!) Also All the Light We Cannot See is excellent, as is The Secret History. I found Wolf Hall a little too dense for me, but I really enjoyed the sequel, Bring Up The Bodies. Happy reading! xo

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