Five Rad Books to Read While Self-Isolating

Most of us are going into week 8747594 of self-isolation/quarantine, are just about going crazy from lack of a change of scenery, no diversity in the number of faces we see everyday, and how the pandemic is changing life as we once knew it. That said though, all things considered, I've been taking staying inside fairly well. In fact, while others have testified that our present situation has put to death any productivity they had, I have found that isolation has brought about the creativity I thought I had lost in high school. Not only that, I've come to realize that I am a much more focused person when there aren't as many variables of possible outcomes (that made more sense in my head than it likely does to you). I'm coming to understand myself more and more as I go about my days indoors.

One of the things I've actively been trying to do more of, is reading. Leisure reading the single most morn-some casualty of my increasingly busy schedule. This fallout with reading is also a consequence of the disappointingly obscene amount of time I spend online. I'm going to attempt to change that in the coming weeks and I find that reading beloved books helps me to get back in the swing of reading. Today, I want to list a few of said beloveds for you to read while self-isolating.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, the famed author of the Grisha trilogy, is a mystery/fantasy novel following Alex Stern- a incoming Yale student who doesn't understand how she could have possibly landed herself in New Haven. She's nothing like her studious and multifaceted roommates. She possesses no distinctive quality, no quirk that sets her apart from her peers...except that she sees ghost-like creatures. The higher-ups of the a secret society at Yale recruited her precisely for this reason. Ninth House is one of my current reads, and I'm less than halfway through, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. 

An adolescent favorite, City of Bones and the rest of The Mortal Instruments marked the pinnacle of my pubescent years. The series has been with through thick and thin and I wouldn't be exaggerating if I'd said that City of Bones is one of my favorite books. Fantasy is my preferred literary genre and this novel 

I read How The Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill my freshman year of college for my Middle Ages and Antiquity course, a class I took for funsies. I'd always had an uncanny━albeit distant, appreciation for the Middle and Age of Antiquity. The author presents the Irish as they had not been described before━as underappreciated saviors of medieval civilization. As war and conflict plagued the continent, the Irish learned scholars and saints that inhabited the island of St. Patrick scrambled to preserve the treasured Western texts. He regales the events of the fall of Rome to contextualize the state of the Western world, and points out that it fell  The book's title may be an overcommitment: Cahill shines light on history's underdogs, but he also tackles the larger questions such as, "How real is history?", and "What is worth preserving?". Obviously, this book isn't for everyone. Even among the known readership, it wasn't widely received. But it provides a perspective that isn't often found within the sub-genre.

If you're looking for mind-boggling suspenseful read, look not further: Dark Matter has it all, an unsuspecting, but underestimated protagonist. And best of all, it successfully handles the very easily- and often botched subject of cross-dimensional travel. If you plan to pick this up, buckle up!

Who's surprised by the inclusion of Lord of the Rings in this list? Its a wholesome, timeless tale about the dichotomy of good and evil, the significance of "everyday folk" as Gandalf says, and the importance of home.