I don’t think it is a moral slip to feel fatigued by the pandemic after two-plus years of masks and distancing. So why would it be enjoyable to read an off-duty book about this strange time? Is fiction not supposed to give us a break from reality? The quirky style of Our Country Friends makes … Read More
The below was first written for a project funded by the American Library Association, for a pilot project using reading as a way to address issues of addiction. For more on the project, see here; for more information on bibliotherapy, see here. Addiction is, among many other things, bewildering and isolating. It’s an enormous and … Read More
July 22, 2021, Rutgers Cook Campus (Facebook, Twitter): “Photo taken today in Foran Hall with an overflowing Little Free Library: the SEBS book exchange program has officially survived!” The SEBS Little Free Library was launched in February 2020, a month before the lockdown, to facilitate free book swaps as part of the Little Free Library project. … Read More
Although published pre-COVID, Ling Ma’s brilliant debut novel Severance eerily mirrors the pandemic that has upended our world for the past year and a half. In Severance, Shen Fever is the devastating disease, a bizarre syndrome that induces a zombie-like feverish condition, which proves fatal for anyone infected. Main character Candace Chen, a twentysomething first-generation … Read More
Celebrating Poetry Month in April 2021 inspired us at Books We Read to develop a new library guide called Books We Read: Poetry. The guide offers suggested poems as well as secondary readings to deepen enjoyment and understanding of poetry. We understand that reading poetry might look like a challenge. Many people think they don’t … Read More
With no kids in the house for a long time, I can only imagine how difficult it is for parents with small children in these days. The first day my friend’s kids were back in school last week, I got a text saying TIME TO CHAT. Did that mean it’s time, I have time, or … Read More
As a project and as a blog, we here at Books We Read have been very interested in what––and how––people are reading during the pandemic. Are people taking the time indoors to tackle classics that they’d always wanted to read, or falling back on the authors or genres (or even the same novels) that have … Read More
You have read the right titles. You even enjoyed many of them. But you still feel uncomfortable showing off in your own words how well read you are. Here is some help. Read what others told about the book, right after it was published. You may get some ideas. You may get inspired to read … Read More
Spring break and books? The idea of reading recommendations is so obvious that it really annoys me that it didn’t occur to me. Following Julie’s lead, we decided that, instead of adding another assignment to our hectic lives, we would choose to write about books we had recently read. I know, reading a new title … Read More
My pick for a spring break book isn’t something that was recently written, or even a book that I’ve recently read. Instead, John Steinbeck’s 1945 novel Cannery Row is the basis of one of my most vivid reading memories: in middle school I picked it up one evening and simply didn’t stop. I was spellbound … Read More