“The All of It,” by Jeannette Haien, is a gem in every respect, small, dense and stunningly beautiful. “The Glass Hotel” tells the story of someone finding herself living an implausible life in an extraordinary time. Oddly, it wasn’t an entirely depressing book, but I wasn’t going there. John Mandel, is a world away from “Station Eleven,” Mandel’s award-winning novel about the earth after an apocalyptic event that wipes out most of humanity. It is the writing, of course, that makes this story so moving. Robinson tells the story of a young girl, abandoned as a child, who finds love and grace in this world in the best way she can. The first is “Lila,” by Marilynne Robinson. The comfort comes not from reading “happy” books, but from witnessing the affirmation of life in other times and places.Īnother pandemic concession is that the books are all relatively short, under 300 pages. And I looked for books that also offer comfort. For this year, I chose books that offer escape from the here and now because, Lord knows, we need to escape. I look for unique pieces, slightly out of the mainstream. The books I have chosen, anchored in other times and places, connect us with complex characters whose lives resonate with our own. Talking about literature, as we wind our way through these interesting times, feels like a privilege, and a joy. After isolation, polarization and not nearly enough conversation, reading important writers feels exactly right. In the meantime, let’s go at our own pace. When Covid becomes less of a threat, our minds will refocus, our attention span will expand and reading will once again become the joy it has always been. My message is, forgive yourself if you can’t plow through books the way you once did. I want to share the list with anyone who is up for a good read. Therefore, it was challenging to find eight books for my upcoming winter groups. I have had the same experience over the last two-plus years. They say nothing holds their fractured attention. They tell me they read the same paragraph repeatedly before it sinks in. My “bookies” tell me they have been finding it difficult to concentrate. In my other gig I conduct book groups, where we talk about literary fiction and nonfiction. I sometimes wonder if I’m the only one feeling this way, but I suppose everyone, at some point during the pandemic, has found it difficult to focus on reading for pleasure. Most of us learned to read a long time ago, but many of us are learning to read all over again through the fog of Covid.

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