The Books I've Read During Lockdown

I have been reading a lot. Not as much as I hoped, but still a lot. During the lockdown, I think we all have ups and downs and therefore sometimes reading is a brilliant thing to turn to and sometimes even that feels arduous so it becomes easier to turn to daytime tv and Netflix. I thought I'd share what I've been reading now that we're starting to come out of lockdown (controversially, I'll add). 

*careful, spoilers*

Essentialism by Greg McKeown    3/5

I've been wanting to read this book ever since I learnt about minimalism and essentialism a few years ago. It details how we are wasting time and money on the non-essential in life and how we can take steps to fix that. It is one of those books that is good to keep around and keep picking up as you slowly work through your own essentialism journey. It wasn't as enlightening as I had hoped it would be for me but I think that is because I had already consumed so much content on minimalism and essentialism that I wasn't really a beginner anymore. 

I did enjoy some brilliant and insightful snippets throughout the book. The analogies help to show you how living an essentialist lifestyle does not mean you will live a life lacking in anything which I think is one of the important parts of essentialism to get across. Essentialism doesn't mean you have to give up the things that add value to your life and that you love, it simply means that you get to ditch everything that you don't love leaving more space and time for your priorities. 

No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg    5/5

This little book is a collection of eleven speeches by the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg. Although the book probably doesn't add anything new if you are already familiar with the speeches that Greta gives about global warming, the climate crisis and the lack of response from governments around the world, it does acts as a lovely piece of hope about the younger generation. 

Greta is someone who is unapologetic in her message and cannot get more urgent or passionate. I sincerely wish that more probably who learnt about climate change in school realised that this was an imminent threat to the world and it really is in the best interests of the human race to do something about it straight away. The speeches show how Greta does the work of finding out facts and statistics but ultimately admits that it isn't and never should be her job to solve the problems, there are people out there capable of solving the problems but the governments need to support this and allow it to happen. 

"Your silence is almost worst of all."

Feminine Gospels by Carol Ann Duffy    3/5

I have read some of Carol Ann Duffy's work before but never a whole book of her poetry so thought I would give this a try because I am a poetry fan. I was a little disappointed, I don't know if it is because some of the contexts of the metaphors went over my head or that the writing was such a formal style of poetry that I have grown unused to. She is a brilliant writer and some of the poems were really interesting and insightful however others I just couldn't get to grips with. 

I am determined to try some more of her popular works but also really want to try out some more famous poets which I still haven't got round to reading. I think the key with most poetry is to take your time with understanding the metaphors and sentences to be able to gauge the most from them. However, I think that becomes a problem when you are trying to read for pleasure and simply feel the feelings of a poem from the offset, which may be why I struggled with Carol's book. 

A World Without Bees by Alison Benjamin & Brian McCallum    2/5

If you want to know the facts about bees, why they seem to be disappearing at unnatural rates and what the world would be like without them, then this book is for you. 

For me, it felt like you could have fitted the information into a shorter essay or book because each chapter almost started fresh with the knowledge that you had actually learnt in the previous chapter. Learning again about diseases and parasites which you already had a basic understanding of from the previous chapters. It was good for a factual book to simply teach me more about bees, the way they are reared to pollinate crops on such a large scale across the US and the variety of problems that are faced by beekeepers and the bees themselves.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell    4/5

I have read lots of books by Rainbow Rowell and loved them all but this one is a little different being based on a fanfiction which appears within Fangirl, another of her books. I enjoyed it a lot and raced through reading it with the fun and suspense of a casual fiction book. It reminded me why reading fiction can be thrilling and how I used to hate putting books down because when you get involved in the story and into their world, it becomes a beautiful fantasy escape.

This book is specifically about Simon Snow who is meant to be the Chosen One in this world of wizardry in England, but he doesn't seem to be very good at it and people seem to be getting in the way of him achieving this. It can come across a little like a world similar to Harry Potter but feels almost much more relatable as a world that we live in today with the wizards after school expected to go into studying for degrees or getting human jobs. I like this aspect of it and it also has just as much romance as any other Rainbow Rowell book. 

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman    5/5

Oh my goodness, this book. 

I know people raved about it a lot when it came out a few years ago so it seems like I missed the bandwagon but I am so glad I eventually picked this up. I was interested because it is about Eleanor who seems to work a mundane office job with every day looking much like the other and I am really enjoying content recently about the twenties and thirties years of working life. And I know I may have been naive to think that's all the book would be about because even the blurb explains that she drinks a bottle of vodka on the weekends, but, wow, I could never have been ready for what was in those pages. 

I felt every emotion reading this. I cried, happily and sadly throughout. I despaired when I knew that Eleanor was naive to the world and would get disappointed. I worried for her when she went out and bought even more vodka. But mostly I learnt to feel an appreciation for the small and kind moments in life and the kindness that comes from people, like Raymond in Eleanor's life. 

I would recommend this book to everyone as a very relevant take on loneliness, navigating social life and appreciating those who are there for us no matter what, even in small ways.

Step By Step: The Life in my Journeys by Simon Reeve    5/5

I have been a fan of Simon Reeve and his documentaries for a long time now, but never really thought to look beyond the programme at the programme's presenter. He has presented unconventional travel programmes for about the last twenty years and his style and adventures have gripped his viewers continuously. This book details his early life through to the start of his working life and eventually on to his career as a writer and TV presenter. 

Simon's life brilliantly depicts how coming from a less educated background, leaving school at 16, doesn't have to be a problem if you stick at it with 100% in everything you do. He managed to find a purpose in his life through his travel and adventure which has helped to keep him from struggling again with his mental health as he did after leaving school. 

I didn't realise that before coming into TV, Simon worked for The Sunday Times in the postroom and through this, he gained experience and interest in investigative journalism. This meant he was able to write books and get spotted by the BBC to start presenting travel documentaries in these remote and often dangerous but also beautiful places in the world. 

Simon continuously shows how humbling he finds travel and is continually learning from the people he meets on his journeys. This message stuck with me and is something that is so important to do throughout our lives even if we aren't on a far-flung adventure to a 'place that doesn't exist' because every person has a story even if they only live around the corner from you. If you haven't seen his documentaries, I recommend them all, alongside this book. 

Momentum by Saci Lloyd    4/5

Set in the near future, in a world that looks scarily like something that could be our real future, there are energy wars caused by the lack of fossil fuels and lack of new technologies of renewable energy sources. The world mostly centred around the bigs cities and this story is set in London where the wealthy and privileged are called Citizens but everyone else is called an Outsider. The story follows a teenage Citizen who is interested in the Outsiders way of life but falls into their world completely having to solve a mystery and protect those he loves to help the Outsiders. 

This book really hit home to me for some reason, maybe because I can legitimately see our world turning into that world and maybe because it brings up so many issues that I actively try to fight for. The climate crisis causing everyone to move towards cities and real panic when we do run out of fossil fuels and have to struggle to update our energy systems quickly enough. Equality and equity for all because the comparison between the Outsiders and Citizens bought up issues of classism, has relations to present-day racism and xenophobia. Abolishing unhealthy systems which actively work against the community and population like the army and the police rang true with the dystopian world's Kossak soldiers violently enforcing oppression. 

However, although it brought up all the themes for me, it isn't really a book about them. It is simply set in a dystopian world. It is really a book full of suspense and tension, excitement and adventure, and two unlikely friends coming together.