How are we holding up with social distancing and self-isolating? Got cabin fever yet? (We don’t want any ax-murderers screaming “HERE’S JOHNNY!” on anyone’s conscience…)
Anyway, while you’re trying to connect to the outside world online and to hold a conversation via Skype, Discord, Zoom, or any other virtual platform, whether for school, your job, or anything to make you feel you’re not alone, here are five books recommended by others, including myself, to help you feel less alone in the world, because #BooksConnectUs.
The first few books on this list are recommendations by those on Book Riot, and if you want to see their full list of Quarantine Reads, check it out here!
1. Emma, by Jane Austin
Image via Penguin Random House
According to one writer on Book Riot, upon revisiting the novel after years of collecting dust since having to read it in high school, Tirzah Price felt content reading Austin’s language, once getting used to focusing more on the words rather than the plot, as opposed to contemporary novels.
I chose this one to be on the list because of the film adaptation that will be coming our way (though not anytime soon given our circumstances), but also because of its modern-day film retelling of it (well, modern-day to the 1990s) in the form of the ’95 film Clueless! Think you’ll be disappointed if you checked these out? As if!
2. You Are Not Alone, by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
Image via Amazon
Now, you can tell by the title just why it’s on the list… We are all going through this pandemic together, which is why we only have each other, even if we can’t all physically be around each other during this time. So, I thought this book’s title was very fitting. The plot of it though…
Well, it goes like this: in this psychological thriller of a book, lonely girl Shay would do anything to fit in, and when she meets sisters Cassandra and Jane, she strives to live up to that promise, even at a very high cost…
Would you be willing to risk it all in order to not be lonely anymore? You decide… (Just don’t ax-murder us, please!)
3. All The Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven
Image via Amazon
Now, this was originally on Book Riot’s list, but it also just so happens to be one of my personal favorites, so I thought it’d be best to put it here to split up the two halves of my own list! Abby Hargreaves on Book Riot said that this story will surely get your mind off of the troubling times we’re in and she was told that the new movie on Netflix will def make you cry.
I can tell you from personal experience that I couldn’t agree more with Hargreaves: I came to this book at just the right time, as it got me though the uncertainty that I had been feeling following the day of the 2016 presidential election results. (I just needed to look on the “bright” side!) And while I haven’t personally seen the movie as of yet (though I really should), I can personally recommend Niven’s book to any fan of John Green and Rainbow Rowell!
Anyway, those books were mainly what the Book Riot staff recommends. Now, here’s a couple that I would recommend at an isolated time like this…
4. Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them, edited by Cristanne Miller
Image via Amazon
While I don’t have this exact copy (yet), I do have a Barnes & Noble Classics copy of her poetry, so whatever way you may choose to read her poetry, please do! If you’re to be sheltered within your own home, you might as well learn how to do just that from one of the most well-known homebound recluses.
See what she has to say about solitude and society as a whole through her several untitled poems, though with the As She Preserved Them copy, you can guarantee that you’ll get them all exactly as she wrote them, as well as the alternate words and phrases she had written along the sides of her originally written, later finalized poems. This is perfect for avid fans and scholars alike!
5. A Room Of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf
Image via Amazon
While I have not read this personally, I have just ordered it for myself to read, along with some Sylvia Plath, because as was very much the case with Dickinson, this, and even Sylvia Plath’s works, would be perfect in being with oneself in perfect solitude while chaos runs amok in the outdoor world. While this may be a purely feminist work, I think its message can apply to us all.
If you are a creator (i.e., an artist, a writer, etc.) aside from a booklover – or even because you are a booklover – and internally strive to paint the world in your image, and the world tells you to stay in indefinitely, then do what deep down you always thought you could do before the world took you away from your true place to be. In other words, heed Woolf’s advice and make “a room of one’s own” out of your own home to “express your freedom to create”!
Wow, that was a lot. Anyway, what book are you starving to tear into? (Just don’t do it literally.)
Featured Image via Unsplash
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