For most of the pandemic, my concentration skills shot from hyper-focused to barely able to follow an episode of Gossip Girl (yes, even when Nate’s face was on screen – shocking). My voracious appetite for reading went out the window, alongside my appetite for pretty much everything else. These days if I read 5-10 pages each day of whatever book I’m reading, I’m doing good.

Still, I managed to keep up a semblance of a reading routine and wanted to share the books I picked up during this very weird time in our lives as we come up to one year of rolling lockdowns in Ireland. Looking at this list, I’m analysing my choices, wondering if my decision to reread Franny and Zooey so soon into the first lockdown is significant (it is) or what my addiction to the bubbly prose of Babitz is all about (a big neon sign flashing “hedonistic escapism this way!”). There is also an obvious reason why I jumped into nostalgia-mode and reread books from my youth (looking at you, Miss Pamela). Slow as it was, I probably would’ve went a bit crazy without the company of books during the past year.

I’ve added an asterisk beside the books I would – and most likely will – read again and again. This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the asterisk-less titles – I just don’t think I’ll reread them.

Pre-lockdown (Jan-March 2020)

Caroline Kepnes – You

Ottessa Moshfegh – Homesick For Another World

Caroline O’Donoghue – Promising Young Women

Steven Gillon – America’s Reluctant Prince

Elizabeth Wurtzel – Bitch

Lockdown begins…ends…begins…ends

Megan Angelo – Followers

JD Salinger – Franny and Zooey *

Nora Ephron – I Feel Bad About My Neck*

Pamela Des Barres – I’m With The Band*

Keith Richards – Life

Bret Easton Ellis – Less Than Zero*

Truman Capote – Breakfast at Tiffany’s*

Eve Babitz – Slow Days, Fast Company*

Candace Bushnell – Sex and the City*

Candace Bushnell – Trading Up*

Joan Didion – Slouching Towards Bethlehem*

Eve Babitz – Sex and Rage*

Jilly Cooper – Riders*

Naoise Dolan – Exciting Times

Slash – The Autobiography

Eve Babitz – Eve’s Hollywood*

Eileen Myles – Chelsea Girls

Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half

Amanda de Cadenet – It’s Messy

Eve Babitz – I Used to be Charming*

Mary Karr – The Liars’ Club (I think about this book all the time.)

Anna Wiener – Uncanny Valley

2021…still in lockdown

Jane Fonda – My Life So Far

If you read any books that either managed to take your mind off reality for a second or which actually changed your mind about something, I’d love to hear about it! If you want more books content, you might like my Instagram!