Books to help you through Lockdown 2.0
With another lockdown looming the only thing we’ve been stockpiling is books. There’s no better way to help pass the time than to get lost in a book, so team Bookends have put together a list of books we think are perfect for helping you through this second lockdown. Take a look at our recommendations below!
A Toolkit for Modern Life: 53 Ways to Look After Your Mind by Dr Emma Hepburn
In this warm, wise book, clinical psychologist Dr Emma Hepburn (Instagram’s @thepsychologymum) introduces her proven and practical tools for taking care of your mental and emotional wellbeing every day.
Using her trademark illustrations, Dr Hepburn (aka @thepsychologymum) shines a welcome ray of light into the neglected corners of your brain. From identifying what triggers unhappy thoughts to overcoming the fear of making mistakes, A Toolkit for Modern Life will help you to cultivate positive habits and feel more confident, happier and in tune with yourself.
* Call out and manage feelings of imposter syndrome
* Answer back to your inner critic
* Become aware of and monitor your emotional capacity
* Spot unhelpful thoughts and develop more helpful patterns of thinking
* Understand how the emotions cycle affects you
* Identify what triggers anxiety for you and how to intercept it
* Overcome the fear of making mistakes
* Spot and call out your ‘catastrophizing’
* Identify and disarm social media comparisons
* Align your decisions and actions with your core values
* Assemble your own mental health toolkit for life
Make sure to check out this brilliant guide Emma’s put together to surviving winter lockdown!
One August Night by Victoria Hislop
‘A return to Hislop’s thyme-scented, Aegean-lapped fictional Greece’ The Sunday Times
Beloved author Victoria Hislop returns to Crete in this long-anticipated sequel to her multi-million-copy Number One bestseller, The Island.
25th August 1957. The island of Spinalonga closes its leper colony. And a moment of violence has devastating consequences.
When time stops dead for Maria Petrakis and her sister, Anna, two families splinter apart and, for the people of Plaka, the closure of Spinalonga is forever coloured with tragedy.
In the aftermath, the question of how to resume life looms large. Stigma and scandal need to be confronted and somehow, for those impacted, a future built from the ruins of the past.
Number one bestselling author Victoria Hislop returns to the world and characters she created in The Island – the award-winning novel that remains one of the biggest selling reading group novels of the century. It is finally time to be reunited with Anna, Maria, Manolis and Andreas in the weeks leading up to the evacuation of the island… and beyond.
Clanlands by Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish
A road trip book with a difference. Stars of Outlander – Sam Heughan & Graham McTavish – explore Scotland, a land of raw beauty, poetry, feuding, music, history, and warfare.
With a foreword by Diana Gabaldon.
From their faithful camper van to boats, kayaks, bicycles, and motorbikes, join stars of Outlander Sam and Graham on a road trip with a difference, as two Scotsmen explore a land of raw beauty, poetry, feuding, music, history, and warfare.
Unlikely friends Sam and Graham begin their journey in the heart of Scotland at Glencoe and travel from there all the way to Inverness and Culloden battlefield, where along the way they experience adventure and a cast of highland characters. In this story of friendship, finding themselves, and whisky, they discover the complexity, rich history and culture of their native country.
The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult
Jodi Picoult’s new bestseller explores life, death, and missed opportunities.
Who would you be, if you hadn’t turned out to be the person you are now?
Dawn is a death doula, and spends her life helping people make the final transition peacefully.
But when the plane she’s on plummets, she finds herself thinking not of the perfect life she has, but the life she was forced to abandon fifteen years ago – when she left behind a career in Egyptology, and a man she loved.
Against the odds, she survives, and the airline offers her a ticket to wherever she needs to get to – but the answer to that question suddenly seems uncertain.
As the path of her life forks in two very different directions, Dawn must confront questions she’s never truly asked: what does a well-lived life look like? What do we leave behind when we go? And do we make our choices, or do our choices make us?
Two possible futures. One impossible choice.
All I Want for Christmas by Joanna Bolouri
What if the love of your life was your best friend’s girlfriend, and you were the one that set them up?
‘A hilarious and heartwarming festive treat’ Heidi Swain
‘So funny, sweet, warm and fuzzy’ Clodagh Murphy
When Nick loses his job and is dumped by his glamorous but demanding girlfriend, he is forced to grudgingly accept work as a Santa at a local Christmas grotto. As his friends are getting married or promoted, Nick spends his days being terrorised by unfriendly elves and cried on by snotty, spoiled children.
Then he meets 4-year-old Alfie. All Alfie wants for Christmas is for his mum, Sarah, to be happy again. Moved by the boy’s selfless wish, Nick arranges a date between Sarah and his best friend, Matt. But as Sarah and Alfie become part of all their lives, Nick realises that happiness for Sarah and Matt might mean heartbreak for himself.
A hilarious and heartwarming Christmas romance from the author of The List, perfect for fans of Beth O’Leary’s The Flatshare and Marian Keyes’ Grown Ups.
Fortune Favours the Dead by Stephen Spotswood
The first in the brilliant new Pentecost and Parker series, FORTUNE FAVOURS THE DEAD is a hugely entertaining murder mystery set in 1940s New York City.
New York, 1946. Lillian Pentecost is the most successful private detective in the city, but her health is failing. She hires an assistant to help with the investigative legwork. Willowjean Parker is a circus runaway. Quick-witted and street-smart, she’s a jack-of-all-trades with a unique skill-set. She can pick locks blindfolded, wrestle men twice her size, and throw knives with deadly precision – all of which come in handy working for Ms P.
When wealthy young widow Abigail Collins is murdered and the police are making no progress, Pentecost and Parker are hired by the family to track down the culprit. On Halloween night, there was a costume party at the Collins’ mansion, where a fortune teller performed a séance which greatly disturbed Abigail. Several hours later her body was discovered bludgeoned to death in her late husband’s office. Problem is, the door to the office was locked from the inside. There was no-one else in the room, and the murder weapon was beside the victim; the fortune teller’s crystal ball.
It looks like an impossible crime, but Pentecost and Parker know there is no such thing…
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