Book Recommendations

During these trying times, many people are turning to the worlds of fiction in an effort to escape our own. In a world and a time when simply leaving your front door is unsafe, books allow us to escape our narrowing worlds and explore ones we couldn’t even imagine. Below I’ve compiled some of my favourite worlds to escape to in the hopes that at least one of them will provide you with that same escapism and adventure that we all need.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket

I’m sorry to say that the book you’re holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.

The first book in a series of 13, this read will keep you hooked for a long time. If you’re not in the mood for that much commitment, however, this could certainly be read as a standalone. In writing this book Snicket does something other authors seem to neglect - taking kids seriously. His use of mystery and witty literary references appeal to precocious children toeing the line between child and adult fiction, and searching for a darker alternative to the fairy-tales and happy endings that are forced on them.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll

After a tumble down the rabbit hole, Alice finds herself far away from home in the absurd world of Wonderland. As mind-bending as it is delightful, Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel is pure magic for young and old alike.

A beloved classic that everyone should read at least once in their lifetime, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is brilliant for children, but with enough hilarity and joy for life in it to please adults too. It’s a lovely book with which to take a brief respite from our overly rational and sometimes dreary world. Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

A short book of only 100 pages, this book can be read in a day, but will stay with you a lot longer. The world the story is set in is captivating, lush, interesting, endlessly deep, and unpredictable all at once. McGuire has created a fascinating system of realities and the people who visited them, providing a new exploration of ‘after ever after’, bringing into question what happens when Alice returns from Wonderland, or Dorothy from Oz. This idea sets the backdrop for a murder mystery like none other seen before, complete with a wonderfully eccentric and complex group of characters. This makes for a refreshing, captivating book you won’t be able to put down.

Children of Blood and Bone - Tomi Adeyemi

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Riders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Set in a fantasy world modelled around West African Mythology, this first installation in a trilogy has been described as where “Fantasy meets Black Lives Matter”. Adeyemi set out to create a story with a cast of unmistakably black characters. In Orïsha, she explicitly invokes a nonWestern tradition, and a transparent parable of oppression, with distinct comparisons to the world we live in.

A Very Large Expanse of Sea Tahereh Mafi

It’s the year after 9/11, and Shirin has just started at yet another new school. It’s a difficult time, especially for a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who wears a hijab. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. When Shirin meets Ocean James, he’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know her - and it terrifies her. Shirin has had her guard up against the world for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down...

A heart wrenching story that hits all the wellworn beats readers have come to expect from teen romances, but it’s able to reframe a familiar story through the lens of a culture too rarely humanized on page or screen. Mafi provides Muslim representation in young adult literature, something that is severely lacking, and does so with a thoughtful, personal and powerfully emotional story.

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist - books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

As a story about death being told by Death himself, you’re exploring a rather unique perspective. This is a tragic, rather heavy tale about World War II, but being set in Germany it does an amazing job at showing us the civilians on the other side of the war - the ones we rarely hear much about. This is a book I’d recommend to anybody not only for the beautiful writing and character exploration, but to open your eyes to a different side of history. Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is posi-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult. Evie worries her uncle will discover her darkest secret, but when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.

Bray’s depiction of 1920’s New York hosts a rich, complex and addictive story-line full of mystery, magic and horror. It’s vivid character building creates a community of diverse, complex characters from a variety of cultures, backgrounds and religions. The way that this supernatural story of mystery and horror is integrated into the already fascinating history of New York in the Roaring Twenties makes for a truly thrilling and gripping read.

A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction – but assassins are getting closer to her door.

More than eight hundred pages are quite the feat if you are not used to such lengthy novels, but don’t be discouraged, because The Priory of the Orange Tree is more than worth your time. Through her vivid world building and character development Shannon creates, in the most natural manner, a society led by pure, untainted equality. In her world, no one is belittled or raised differently for their identity, no matter their gender, race or sexuality. It stands on its own in the fantasy genre for being able to create a societal system that doesn’t fall prey to the same mistakes as our medieval forerunners. Having been called the “feminist successor to Lord of the Rings” this is the perfect read for somebody looking to satisfy their needs for high fantasy without having to see women get the short end of the stick. When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true. As a family, they've got it all. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth-more terrifying than death itself-and hideously more powerful. The Creeds are going to learn that sometimes dead is better.

Pet Sematary has been an icon of popular culture for over three decades, and, as with all of King’s novels, it is about so much more than just a typical tale of horror. It explores themes of death, what is natural and unnatural, relationships; it is about the people as much as the terrible events that occur. The book reads quickly, with short chapters driving the story forward in the typical style of King, but the level of detail, the slow building suspense, the humanity and lack thereof are exactly what makes this whole book work. King’s writing is genius, despite the fact that it is utterly disturbing.