What To Read During Lockdown, courtesy of Pan Macmillan

MIDDLEMARCH BY GEORGE ELIOT

A masterpiece of candid observation into Victorian life, emotional insight and transcending humour, Middlemarch is a truly monumental novel and a timeless classic you will want to revisit again and again.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/george-eliot/middlemarch/9781509857449

THE AGE OF LIGHT BY WHITNEY SCHARER

Set in the roaring twenties in Paris, The Age of Light is a riveting, vivid and powerful story of the photographer Lee Miller and her lover, Man Ray.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/whitney-scharer/the-age-of-light/9781509889150

THE WILD JOURNAL BY WILLOW CROSSLEY

Whether you live in a house or flat, in a rural or urban environment, this beautifully illustrated book shows how to harness the natural world around us and feel more grounded and rooted in our surroundings. Guiding you through creative practical projects and therapeutic seasonal reflections, The Wild Journal celebrates the potential of nature to mend, heal and transform our mood.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/willow-crossley/the-wild-journal/9781529028225

THE SNOW GEESE BY WILLIAM FIENNES

A poignant and lyrical paean to the richness and wonder of the world around us. This unique blend of autobiography, travel and nature writing is a classic tale of belonging and the inescapable lure of home.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/william-fiennes/the-snow-geese/9781447275442

ENGLAND: POEMS FROM A SCHOOL EDITED BY KATE CLANCHY

Oxford Spires Academy is a small comprehensive school with 30 languages, a large population of migrant children – and one special focus: poetry. In this unique anthology, their mentor and teacher Kate Clanchy brings their poems together, allowing readers to see why their work has caused such a stir and won so many prizes. Raw and direct, funny and powerful, lyrical and heart-breaking, they document the pain of migration and the exhilaration of building a new land, an England of a thousand voices.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kate-clanchy/england/9781509886609

MUM & DAD BY JOANNA TROLLOPE

Sunday Times number one bestseller Joanna Trollope explores the issues at the heart of a modern family with her trademark wit and warmth, in Mum & Dad. This is a brilliantly drawn examination of what happens when roles are reversed that asks: as parents age, children grow and families diverge, how do we look after one another?

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/joanna-trollope/mum-dad/9781529003383

SOLVE FOR HAPPY BY MO GAWDAT

Solve for Happy is the equation for happiness. This is a startlingly original book about creating and maintaining happiness, written by a top Google executive with an engineer’s training and fondness for thoroughly analyzing a problem. By means of several highly original thought experiments, Mo helps readers find enduring contentment by questioning some of the most fundamental aspects of their existence.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/mo-gawdat/solve-for-happy/9781509809950

THE BELLS OF OLD TOKYO BY ANNA SHERMAN

In The Bells of Old Tokyo Anna Sherman combines a search for the lost bells of the city (by which Tokyo’s residents kept time during the era that Japan was closed to the West) with stories of her growing friendship with a local coffee shop owner. In this beautiful travel memoir, Anna walks readers through the love hotels of Shinjuku, the appalling fire-storms of 1945, the death of Mishima, the Tohuku earthquake and much of contemporary Japanese culture.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/anna-sherman/the-bells-of-old-tokyo/9781529000450

FUNNY WEATHER: ART IN AN EMERGENCY, OLIVIA LAING

This exciting, career-spanning collection of essays provides an uplifting and inspiring journey through how art can help us in times of crisis and upheaval. There is something here for every reader, Olivia profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O’Keefe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, writes love letters to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, explores loneliness, drinking, technology and protest. With originality and compassion, she celebrates art as an enriching force, an antidote to frightening times such as these.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/olivia-laing/funny-weather/9781529027648

MEDITATIONS BY MARCUS AURELIUS

‘For many thinkers of the 19th century – from Darwin to Nietzsche – Marcus was an intellectual hero’
Mary Beard

A timely book for today’s world, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations explores how to endure hardship, how to cope with change and how to find something positive out of adversity.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/george-eliot/middlemarch/9781509857449