March 2020 Book Stack

Month two of my 2020 book challenge—to read 50 books from the stack by my bed (and other unread volumes already in the house). Last months here: January, February.



On the bright side of the COVID-19 pandemic is plenty of time to read, although I have to admit to spending far more time watching TV than reading, and the dumber the better C and I had recently begun watching "The Crown," but most nights I vote for "My Name is Earl." I even gave "Tiger King" a try, and it definitely took my mind off of the coronavirus, but it gave me even worse nightmares than I already had, so no more. It's also kind of fortuitous that I'm confined to home with this giant stack of books and a goal of reading them all this year, but it's also kind of a bummer that my reading choices are limited to books I already have (okay, so I've ordered a few books online—after all this thing could go on for a year or more!). It's also unfortunate that even if I finish reading all the books in the stack, I won't be able to get rid of them, which was kind of the ultimate goal—decluttering. Alright, enough complaining, on to the books.

One of my mothers-in-law gave me Where the Crawdads Sing for Christmas, and I'd been saving it up for just the right time. I'd loved Delia Owens's earlier, nonfiction books—Cry the Kalahari and The Eye of the Elephant—in my 20s and was excited to see where she went with fiction. She did not disappoint, painting all of the intricate details of a South Carolina marsh and the young girl who is abandoned there by her family, left to fend for herself and grow up on intimate terms with all of the birds and animals of the area. Oh, and there's a suspected murder. And a really satisfying ending. I really like the way that the two timelines of the story converge, the present time one progressing by hours or days while the past jumps ahead by years. I'm amazed and delighted that a book in which nature figures so prominently ended up being such a huge bestseller. It gives me hope for the future.

I also finished reading a book I'd started last fall but got a little bored with in the middle: In Beauty She Walks by Leslie Mass. It's the trail journal of a woman who hikes the Appalachian Trail in her 60s. Because it covers every day of the hike without compression, it's a very long book, and because she doesn't run into too much conflict or difficulty, it's a little slow. Or at least it was a little slow a few months ago when my life was all rush-rush-rush. When I picked it back up, after social distancing was initiated, it was a pleasant escape. I think people especially need books about traveling and being outdoors while also being removed from regular 9-to-5 life during these times of social isolation (hint, hint to all the publishers I've sent my book proposal to).

The Beginning of Everything, by Andrea Buchanan I'll be reviewing for Literary Mama, so I won't say much about it here and now, except that it's the memoir of the author's experience with living with the excruciating pain that resulted when a hole tore in the dura mater covering her spine and her long, slow road to recovery. As I read it I couldn't help thinking about how much more challenging the COVID-19 world is for people enduring other medical issues as well as for those going through marital problems (Buchanan and her husband divorce in the midst of her illness). It's one thing to be trapped at home with loved ones who can be kind of irritating in large doses; quite another to be trapped with anger, acrimony, or worse.

I finally convinced Z to read The Outsiders, and when he chose it for his independent reading for English class, his teacher added Rumble Fish, which I decided to read also. I kind of thought I hadn't read it, because even though I'd loved The Outsiders, I did intentionally read sad books until I was in my 30s. But enough of the story was familiar that I decided in the end I had read it; it just hadn't left as much of an impression on my as The Outsiders and I can see why: the story is a lot shorter and a lot less complex, and I just didn't build up as much of an affinity for the characters. 

I read one more book, the last of the mysteries that I picked up last spring at the crime writing conference I went to, but it wasn't very good, so I'm not going to mention it here. In fact it was so bad that I figure I can't do much worse, and I've planned to write a mystery over the next few months of sheltering in place.

What books have you found to escape into these days?