During the nationwide lock down imposed on England I began to discover the power of books and how they can release one from boredom and propel them into an entirely different world. Many people wish to take up reading but do not know where to start so here are three books that may help you enter the world of reading.

Norwegian wood by Haruki Murakami

Norwegian wood, written in 1987, was Murakami’s fifth book and the one that propelled him into the orbit of popular fiction. Murakami, through this book, comments on the increasing western influence in japan through the reference of jazz music like the honeysuckle rose and the pop music of the 1960’s in which the book is set. The book itself is named after the Beatles song ‘Norwegian wood’ that is about love and loss much like the book itself that centres around a love triangle between the main character Toru and two girls that have very different lives and fates. The issue of mental health in Japan is projected through one of Toru’s love interests and the other love interest is one that expresses the sexual liberation of women. Anyone wishing to enter modern Japanese literature must read Norwegian wood by Haruki Murakami as it is the influence of so many books written in japan and abroad.

If you enjoyed this book why not try:

• Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami

• Normal people by Sally Rooney

• Breasts and eggs by Mieko Kawakami

Brave new world by Aldous Huxley

Huxley’s brave new world is a dystopian classic that is set in a London transformed into a country centred on sex, work and state endorsed drug use that makes everyone content in their work. Aside from drugs there is a class divide based around different types of people with the lower worker class being clones of one another and the higher class being made singularly in a lab. The novel follows three main characters Bernard Marx, a man discontent with his part in this society where monogamy is frowned upon and sadness is eradicated through drugs, Lenina Crowne, a woman who represents the status quo of that world and John the savage, a man that does not come from London or a place where they have polygamous relationships. Many in our modern day reference this book and suggest our world is becoming one of numbing pain and increasing promiscuity. The book, however, makes the case for this world being a good one to live in even though many are discomforted reading about a world where life is so far from our own. I recommend this to anyone wishing to venture into dystopian books but also to anyone wishing to analyse our own world and society.

If you enjoyed this book why not try:

• Nineteen eighty-four by George Orwell

• The man in the high castle by Philip k Dick

• Lord of the flies by William Golding

The deeper the water the uglier the fish by Katya Apekina

This is a novel that explore the Freudian relationships between parent and child and the idea of the white saviour complex through the father in Apekina’s novel. The protagonists of the story are two sisters called Edith and Mae who have to move in with their famous father after their mother attempts to take her life. Mae is the sister that is almost identical to her mother and quickly becomes her father’s muse for his new novel, replacing her mother in that role. Edith ,however, has a strong distain for her father as she remembers him leaving her , her sister and mother and despises her father for that reason so she runs away to look for her mother. The book highlights the difficulty of parent child relationships with the background themes of teenage sexuality presented through Edith and Freudian parental relationships through Mae and her father. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes modern novels with an innovative writing structure throughout the novel.

If you enjoyed this book why not try:

• My name is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout

• The storyteller Jodi Picoult

• The first time Lauren Pailing died Alyson Rudd