Happy Friday! 

I hope you are having a great week so far! My week has flown by. I can't believe it's almost the weekend. COVID cases in Melbourne have been rising all week, but things are also getting back to normal. I've been out to dinner a few times and seen a few friends, but I am still working from home. It's a weird vibe. The gym I go to finally re-opened this weekend, with lots of changes in place so I feel safe going. I can definitely tell it's been a few months since my last proper workout… I went to one class and I've been so sore ever since haha. 

Today I am sharing some of my favourite books with quirky characters. These loveable folks will make you shake your head and roll your eyes and also make you smile. Think along the lines of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. All of these books are Megan-approved and I rated at least 4/5 on my book ranking scale :)

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion 

A first-date dud, socially awkward and overly fond of quick-dry clothes, genetics professor Don Tillman has given up on love, until a chance encounter gives him an idea.

He will design a questionnaire—a sixteen-page, scientifically researched questionnaire—to uncover the perfect partner. She will most definitely not be a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker or a late-arriver. Rosie is all these things. She is also fiery and intelligent, strangely beguiling, and looking for her biological father a search that a DNA expert might just be able to help her with.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeymoon 

No one's ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.**

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond's big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repairing her own profoundly damaged one. And if she does, she'll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon 

A bestselling modern classic—both poignant and funny—narrated by a fifteen year old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions.

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. At fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbour’s dog Wellington impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing.

Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer, and turns to his favourite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. As Christopher tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, the narrative draws readers into the workings of Christopher’s mind.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson 

After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he’s still in good health, and one day, he turns 100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn’t interested (and he’d like a bit more control over his alcohol consumption). So he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey.

It would be the adventure of a lifetime for anyone else, but Allan has a larger-than-life backstory: Not only has he witnessed some of the most important events of the twentieth century, he has actually played a key role in them. Quirky and utterly unique, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared has charmed readers across the world.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple 

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle -- and people in general -- has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence -- creating a compulsively readable and surprisingly touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

Have a great weekend.

Happy reading :)