Need a distraction? Here's five of our favourite big reads

The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown most of the world off its axis. It's taken lives, impacted the health of thousands of people and interrupted our very way of life.

It's easy to be overwhelmed by all the information coming at you, so it's important to take your mind off things, even for a little while.

To help you with this we've pulled together some of our favourite big reads from our international partners. There's not a Covid-19 story in sight, promise.

Today we take a look at the life of a wildlife cameraman, the courageous mother raising her kids on adventure, a night spent as Jordan Belfort, revenge of the Winklevoss twins, and when artificial insemination gone wrong.

'My husband chose penguins over the birth of our son'

Mating is a lonely game in the world of emperor penguins. After laying her egg the female passes it to the male and waddles off to sea. While she hunts, he waits, with the egg incubating deep within his fat folds for months on end until the baby hatches.

When wildlife cameraman Lindsay McCrae discovered his new wife Becky was pregnant with their first child, they chose to do things rather differently. He left her at home with the proverbial egg and flew off to Antarctica to spend a year filming the emperor penguins.

The Telegraph looks at what happens when Sir David Attenborough calls - and the reality for those left behind.

She had stage 4 lung cancer, and a mountain to climb

For two decades Isabella de la Houssaye has raised her five children on adventure. Then came a brutal diagnosis, and a burning desire for a final journey with each one.

A reporter and photographer from the New York Times follow Isabella and her daughter Bella as they travel to Argentina to conquer Aconcagua.

My night as the Wolf of Wall Street

If you haven't seen the Hollywood film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, it is the relatively true story of how one man manipulates the market, while devouring most of the drugs in Long Island.

Even in 2013, when the film debuted, the story was a throwback to inexcusable excesses. Since then, we've had #MeToo and increased gender pay fights.

Henry Mance of the Financial Times draws lessons for today's workplace by revisiting the toxic excesses of the Jordan Belfort era.

How the Winklevoss twins became bitcoin billionaires

Remember the Winklevoss twins? Made famous in the 2010 film The Social Network, they sued Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook and lost.

Now the Winklevoss twins have made it big, revenge is in the air.

Danny Fortson of The Times reports.

Their children were conceived with donated sperm. It was the wrong sperm

As genetic testing becomes more widespread, parents are finding that sperm used in artificial insemination did not come from the donors they chose.

Jacqueline Mroz of The New York Times reports.