Reading: Pandemic Survival Strategy?

When I find myself stuck inside hiding from a pandemic, I kinda hope I have a good book. How about you? I thought so. That being said, I was curious what everyone is reading. I just finished ‘Fifth Avenue, 5 a.m.’, which, if you LOVE the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s (I do!!) you MUST read...it’s the behind the scenes and a lot of fun. And fun sounds good right now, right?

So I thought I’d look online for recommendations of fun books to read. I did NOT look for books with a pandemic theme because, well, we’ve already got that, right? But if you’re a glutton for punishment go for it! And Google/Siri/Alexa just don’t seem to understand me when I ask for fun book, they're suggestions were a mixed bag that made me wonder if they even have a sense of humor. I doubt it, although Alexa will tell you joke if you ask her to. (really, try it!)

Then I looked at lists of books you simply MUST read, darling. (Sorry...that’s Holly Golightly speaking through me...she’s hard to shake). Now those lists are what I will call erudite, which means ‘makes you look smart because you read them’. And guess what, you may have read some of them: To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Hamlet, Animal Farm...I know, I’m dozing off already.  Not what we’d call ‘fun’ reading, although TKAM is fabulous, just not laugh-out-loud fabulous. Okay, so that’s not a very useful list for our current circumstances...right?

Let’s do more digging...what do you like? Sci-Fi? Romance? Thrillers? Mystery? Well, I could go on, but the list is long and we all find different things ‘fun’. One person’s romantic comedy is another person’s Steampunk thriller.  It’s kind of subjective, right?

So what do to when you need a good read and you’re stuck at home? I’m assuming here that you have some sort of reader (Kindle, Nook, etc) or can order your book in from Amazon, etc. If not, you can, so figure it out, you’ve got the time.

Just how do you find THE book(s)? The best way is to ask other readers what they are reading and enjoying and guess what, there are nearly as many options for that as there are books. Start with Goodreads. Go to the Community tab and click on Groups. Then plug in the type of book you like. You’ll see lots of groups that chat about books in your favorite genres. And you can join and interact with ‘your people’, too!

So, go find your next fun read—check my past blogs for some ideas, or even one of my books, if you like. But there’s a great read out there just waiting for you and it will hold your hand and take you away from all this shelter-in-place, lock-down, and quarantine craziness. At least for a little while.