The pandemic came as no great surprise to me. It has always lurked as a possibility, like an earthquake that you know is coming but you just don’t know when. What I didn’t expect was the disruption of supplies, the hoarding of things like toilet paper and sanitizing sprays and wipes, the binge eating, and the increased sales (and presumably consumption) of alcohol. And the economic upheaval. That’s been a shock.
Being sequestered during the pandemic, there is plenty of time to read, which provides both escape and intellectual stimulation in our isolation. I’ve read 18 books through the first five months of 2020. All but two were novels. Like most years, I’m not sticking to any one genre. I’ve read thrillers, mysteries, romantic comedies, romances, horror, and adventure stories. A few were mash-ups of different genres, and a few were straight-up literary fiction (i.e. focused on characters’ interior lives).
The most surprising book I read was a medical thriller called The End of October, by Lawrence Wright. Personally surprising because I never thought I’d read a book about a pandemic during a pandemic. Why would anyone choose immersion rather than escape from a killer virus. Yet I learned more about viruses and epidemiology than I ever knew before, and it was a compulsive page-turner. The amazing thing about the book is that it was written in 2019 and only published in April, yet so much of it anticipates current events. I highly recommend it.
Also this year I read the Jojo Moyes trilogy, Me Before You; After You; and Still Me. My first encounter with Moyes was her book Last Letter From Your Lover. Her characters are always nuanced, the relationships real, and the pacing perfect. She reminds me of a modern-day Jane Austen.
Oona Out of Order, by Margarita Montimore, was captivating and original. — Every New Year’s Eve Oona turns a year older, but she doesn’t live her life sequentially. She may be 19 at 11:59 PM, but at the stroke of midnight, finds herself 51, or 37, or whatever. The book follows her only through a handful of years. My only regret was that it wasn’t longer.
Least surprising, but no less satisfying, was a book of four novellas from Stephen King entitled If It Bleeds. It’s terrific. They’re all good, but my favorites were “The Life of Chuck” and “Rat.”
What are you reading?
Recent Comments