Back when the coronavirus was considered a global emergency and lockdown was in order, I found myself having to change my library items from physical pick-ups to digital on Kindle. One of them was Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan.
It’s a contemporary about a woman, as the title suggests, opening a new bakery in a town she’s moved into. Along the way, she finds herself taking care of an injured bird and getting close to a beekeeper. I found it being the light read I definitely needed at the time.
If you had one, what was it? I noticed that House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune was often cited as one on BookTube.
Oddly, Station Eleven. It was very surreal. The book focuses more on the characters than the pandemic that drives the plot, but I think that’s why I felt comfort.
‘Six of Crows.’ Not normally a YA person, but I needed something to get lost in. I loved all the characters, and it had such a banger of a plot.
The Raksura series by Martha Wells. I was a huge Murderbot fan but the first time I tried to read the Raksura I bounced off because it was soo different. But then I came to it with a fresh mind and I was hooked. One of the nice things about it the protags are non-human and they frequently sleep by all cuddling up together in a big warm heap. As I was pretty touch starved at that point that really appealed.
Pillars of the Earth, maybe because it’s an easy long read
Mrs Pollifax is my go to for stressful times. Also The Hobbit and then the whole of Harry Potter (with chocolate).
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami! It was the first book I read in the pandemic, and I remember the intense escapism was really crucial for me during those times. Murakami is always a wonky ride, and Wind up Bird is what got me into his writing!
I read a non-fiction art book called Dada and Surrealism by Robert Short that had a lot of images of art from both movements in the book’s title with writings giving context on the art, artists, and art themselves. It was comforting to see that artists 100 years ago responded to a world around them that was absurd, illogical, and often cruel, with something creative and revolutionary. It was enjoyable to have a book of the art in front of me so I could spend as much or as little time on pieces as I wanted, here and there. It’s not like I could’ve gone to a museum 😅 I also read a beginner’s book on ceramics and a few intermediate books on gardening. Did the gardening, not the ceramics, but focusing my attention on doing things was so helpful at a time when doing things felt hopeless, yet I’d never had so much time to do things.