Quarantine Reading Recommendations

As promised here are the books I recommend you read to pass the time while we are in Quarantine. Fiction is a great distraction so I hope you can delve into these books to escape reality for a short while.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

To quote myself last year in my review of the book is perhaps the best way to recommend it to you now as I don’t think I can improve upon my summary:

‘Invisible Cities is not just a novel by any means. It’s a poetic study of the human experience. Framed by a conversation between the famed Venetian explorer Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, Invisible Cities explores 55 different cities that may or may not be imaginary or in the very least a description of Polo’s hometown Venice.’

READ THIS BOOK! It has become one of my favourites and I am currently reading Cosmicomics by Calvino and I feel like that will also become a favourite.

Anything (by this I mean any of his books) by Haruki Murakami

Murakami is a genius, in my opinion, I love how he writes and I love what he writes about. I’m still relatively new to his works as I started reading him in late 2016, and to be honest, I have only read four of his books (and countless short stories). But, I am nearing the end of my degree - literally in a few weeks so I feel like I can fully delve into his work and slowly work my way through it.

My recommendations based on what I’ve read of him so far is Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart.

The Salmon Who Dared to Leap Higher by Ahn Do-hyung

An uplifting story of a Salmon who was unlike his fellow Salmons thanks to his silver scales, he learns to defy expectations and keep working hard to pursue a dream. This is a poetic fable that will warm your heart and inspire you to look deep within and question what you want out of life.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

To continue the theme of heartwarming reads that cause you to have a profound moment of introspection is one of my favourite recent reads (It was the last book I read in 2019). Before the Coffee Gets Cold takes the concept of time travel and turns it into a lesson on how to cherish each moment and that you should always appreciate what you have while you have it! THis book isn’t in the pile as I lent it to my sister so that she could have something healing to read in this time (I also gave her some of Haemin Sunim’s beautiful little books of wisdom too).

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

A beautiful love story that will take you back to a safer time, one summer in Italy when Elio and Oliver fall in love. I love the movie and I love this book, I feel like I may have to re-read (and re-watch) it this summer. And I also want to read the follow up Find Me as soon as it’s published in Paperback.

Normal People by Sally Rooney

With the BBC adaptation imminent I keep wanting to revisit this book. I love Rooney’s writing and I feel like this whole quarantine situation has made me want to read about love stories. Either I’m compensating for the extreme lack of romance in my life or I am trying to expel the heavy emotions that this time is putting on us all. I can’t decide what it is…maybe it’s both (insert cry emoji)

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

If you're not feeling too fragile this book is a masterpiece I was going to try and write about it for my final essay at Uni but they cancelled it (cries, both tears of sorrow and tears of joy). The Vegetarian tells the story of Yeong-hye from the point of view of three different people: Her husband, Her brother-in-law and Her sister. Its complex and beautiful and is one of the best novels I have ever read! I also have a second-hand copy I managed to get on eBay that is in Korean so with all the spare time I’ve got at the moment I am going to work towards reading it in Korean!

I love it when art inspires art, and for Kang, a line of poetry by Lee Sang inspired her story.

나는 인간만은 식물이어야 한다고 생각한다,

I believe Humans should be plants.

What a strange and interesting sentiment. Perhaps we should at the very least look to plants for inspiration. They work within their ecosystems to keep a balance in nature and support other living things around them.

March Books

March was very strange month for the entire world but reading is one of the best ways to escape this craziness for a few hours. Here are the books I read this March

My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

I listened to this short book on audible, and I can say that it immersed me so much into the story as the narrator Weruche Opia did such a wonderful job of inhabiting the different characters. It’s an interesting tale of a woman who knows her sister is a serial killer, and just how far you will go for family. If my sister was a serial killer I don’t think I would be as loyal as Korede.

Counting Stars, Like a Chicken on a Folding Screen and The Human Arachnid by Kye Yong-muk

I read 3 of Kye Yong-muk’s short stories this month all of which are available to read for free thanks to the LTI Korea via Buk.io. These short stories were all written during or just after the Japanese occupation of Korea and as such reflect this troublesome time in the countries history, one of upheaval, political disarray and poverty. These short stories are a part of history, a part of world history that is often unknown to most in the west. And it’s rather powerful stuff, especially when you read The Human Arachnid which is full of censorship as it was written in 1929 about the working conditions that many Koreans found themselves under the tyranny of Empirical Japanese rule.

Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf

Woolf is one of the most iconic writers of the modern period, her use of stream of consciousness is absolutely iconic at this point. Between the Acts is rife with comedic social commentary and it is also representative of Woolf’s interest in literary history. It’s an interesting read but you have to pay close attention to fully uncover each carefully crafted layer.

Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah

This book is very dreamlike and bizarre. If you love surrealism and fragmented narratives then give this one a read, Bae Suah never disappoints with her beautiful yet strange prose.

Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys

This is one of the bleakest and darkest books I’ve ever read, it’s so excruciating to read Rhys’s novel of a woman in despair just before the second world war. This is a uni book that I’m glad to have read but can safely that I will never read it again because it just made me feel so deflated and sad.

Photo Shop Murder by Kim Young-ha

I finally managed to get a hold of this collection of two short stories by Kim Young-ha second hand from AbeBooks. The two stories are ‘Photo Shop Murder’ (which easily feels like it could be a Korean movie with its subversion of expectations) and ‘Whatever Happened to the Guy in the Elevator’ a surreal and almost Kafkaesque exploration of one man’s commute to and from work. I love Kim’s writing and this little book didn’t disappoint.

My Quarantine Reading List

These are all the books I’m going to be reading while in Quarantine, some for Uni but many others for the sheer pleasure of reading seeing as I have much more time to do both.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (82년생 김지영) by Cho Nam-joo

Kim Jiyoung, born 1982 became a sensation in Korea when published with it becoming the first million-selling Korean novel since 2009’s Please Look After Mom. It follows Kim Jiyoung as she navigates the trials and tribulations of being a female in a mostly misogynistic world. The book also recently got a film adaptation starring Train to Busan’s Gong Yoo and Jung Yu-mi, which I’m looking forward to watching if and when we get it in the UK.

The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

A Uni book, but the book I have been looking forward to the most this year as I have already read Invisible Cities by Calvino which I loved. The Complete Cosmicomics collects all of the Cosmicomic short stories together in one volume; they are bonkers, comically absurd and totally wacky tales of science, family and politics set in space.

Dune by Frank Herbert

A Sci-fi classic that influenced many that wrote after him, Herbert’s Dune has been on my bookshelf for ages, but I will finally get into it while I’m stuck at home for the foreseeable future as I really need to escape reality and be transported to a far off land right now (like most of you too). Also, Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptation starring Timothée Chalamet is coming out later this year, so that’s another reason to read it.

Pride and Prejudice & Persuasion by Jane Austen

Two more Uni reads, but everyone loves Austen, and I can’t wait to delve into her world, I’ve seen many a film adaptation of her works such as Autumn De Wilde’s recent lavish and stylish Emma. but I am yet to read her novels! Yes, I am fully aware that it is a literary crime to have got to 26 as a self-proclaimed book worm and to have never read a single Jane Austen novel. Thankfully Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion will put an end to that, and then I really want to read Emma (as I loved the aforementioned movie), and then I’ll probably end up reading the rest of her books.

The Uncanny & Other Essays by Sigmund Freud

I’ve always been fascinated by Freud and his theories, and in my Modern Lit course for Uni he is kind of required reading if you want to get a look into the socio-historical context of modern and post-modern lit. I also read Civilization and Its Discontents recently, and I found that rather interesting and helpful for an essay on Ford Maddox Ford’s The Good Soldier. The Uncanny can also be applied to many other periods and genres of literature, especially the Gothic, which is a genre I absolutely love.

Seasons of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

Another uni read, although this one didn’t manage to find itself in the stack of books for the post picture as I have misplaced it in the frightful mess that is my bedroom. But I am really excited to read this book as it’s another piece of translated fiction, and it will be the first translated from Arabic that I will read. Seasons of Migration to the North is the story of how colonialism and orientalism can be extremely destructive to a society as a whole and to the individual’s within it. Being set in Sudan also means that the novel explores the interconnectedness of African and Arabic cultures within the country.

The Three-Body Problem (三体) by Liu Cixin

Liu is China’s master of Hard Science Fiction, I’ve read most of his short story collection The Wandering Earth (the title story is also a Netflix movie!), so I want to get started on his critically acclaimed Remembrance of Earth’s Past (地球往事) Trilogy ASAP. I also have a signed copy of The Supernova Era that I got at Forbidden Planet right after it came out in October last year with all intentions of reading it immediately. Alas, it is still waiting on my bookshelf, perhaps I’ll read that one too…it really depends on how long this Quarantine thing is going to go on for!

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Another Uni book, but again it’s one I’m interested in as I read Weight (a retelling of the myth of Atlas) when I was a kid and enjoyed it, so I’m intrigued to read something else by Wintersonson. Also, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman (anyone else just love this word?) aka a coming-of-age novel about a young lesbian growing up in a Pentecostal Community.

The City of Words by Alberto Manguel

Uni required reading. There is a quote somewhere in this work that will be the subject of an essay I have to write so I feel like I should read the whole (or most of) this book to get the gist of the subject and maybe find more parts to quote from. The City of Words was originally a lecture that was turned into a book.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

I recently read Between the Acts for Uni, and I am rather intrigued by Woolf’s writing style, which is famously challenging due to her use of stream of consciousness. Also while studying another text, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s The Turkish Embassy Letters it was claimed that Montagu was part of the inspiration of the main character in Orlando, which is cool and the other part being Woolf’s female lover Vita Sackville-West. Orlando has also been described as ‘the longest and most charming love letter in literature’ by Sackville-West’s son Nigel Nicholson, which sounds absolutely romantic.

I clearly have a lot of reading ahead of me, and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into this eclectic mix of books, reading may just be the only thing to keep me sane in these coming weeks of Quarantine.

Let me know in the comments what books you’ll be reading during Quarantine and whether you have read any of these books.

February Books

I read quite a bit more this month and I also have a couple of unfinished books that will roll over into march or beyond as I have a lot of books to read in part or whole for uni right now. But here are all the books I read this month!

Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud

Freud is a must-read for any student of English lit, so naturally, I gravitated towards this collection of essays to accompany my unit on modern lit. I have been fascinated by psychology for many years and even considered studying it instead of Eng Lit. This was an interesting read but some points regarding women vexed me slightly but that’s to be expected from a 20th-century text.

The Radleys by Matt Haig

A light-hearted, fun and quick read. The story was a little predictable but I don’t really care about that as it was rather funny and a nice way to pass an evening or two.

Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast by Oscar Wilde

I thought this was going to be a short story but it was actually just a collection of Wilde’s witticisms, Funny as they are I was a little disappointed.

Colour and Light & Concord 34 by Sally Rooney

I read a couple of Sally Rooney’s short stories to try and get on backtrack with my (totally impossible) 75 books in a year challenge, which I didn’t but I like reading a good short story nonetheless. I like Rooney’s writing and I like how she navigates heavy topics in a sensitive but real way.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

I like the David Fincher movie so I thought I would check out the source material. I think its a case of the film is better than the book, in the respect of dealing with the whole Tyler Durden revelation and the iconic ending scene has much more power than the cop-out ending of the book.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

I cried. And I can’t believe I only have 2 more books to go before I’ve finished Harry Potter, I only started listening to the audiobooks last year and I’m already nearly finished! Once again I have to commend Stephen Fry on bringing these stories to life with his exceptional narration and I feel like he adds a lot of magic to the stories.

January Books

I only read three books this month which is not great but not too bad either. I have had a severe case of the January blues this past month so I have struggled to motivate myself to function let alone read books. But luckily the days are getting longer day by day and spring is on the horizon so maybe February will be a much better month overall and in terms of reading.

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

A little bit of Japanese short fiction to get my year started, it was an easy and cute read but I would say that it was nothing particularly special. The Guest Cat tells the story of a Japanese couple who are bought closer together by the frequent visits of a neighbours cat.

The Power of Nunchi by Euny Hong

I picked up this book as I felt like I needed some wisdom to start off the new year and the new decade. I don’t think I received said wisdom I was looking for if anything this book felt like a bit of a cash in on the rising global popularity of Korean media. I think Nunchi is probably far more complicated than Hong makes it seem and as I am not Korean I probably don’t even understand 1% of what it actually is.

The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford

I have mixed feelings about this book. I hated it but I also kinda liked it. It’s a complicated relationship and we are working on it as I write an essay on it this coming week. Modernist and impressionistic, The Good Soldier is one of the most meandering books I have ever read. But that’s the point. The narrator is struggling to get his story out so that’s why the plot is a bit like a Jackson Pollock painting, which is infuriating but utterly mysterious at the same time. It’s a modern classic so you should feel compelled to pick it up, so go do that!