By Rory J. Bolivar and Robespierre L. Bolivar
Cathy Rentzenbrink’s delightful Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books and Nick Hornby’s entertainingly irreverent Stuff I’ve Been Reading, two insightful memoirs on a lifetime of reading for pleasure, reminded us of how reading books saved us during the pandemic.
Years from now, long after the proverbial dust of these lost years has settled, we may find ourselves waxing poetic about how the pandemic changed the world. But at this time, it is difficult – some would even say unbearable – to think of the freedoms we lost and even the regular things we had to forego while COVID-19 raged.
Like you, we went through stages of grief when the pandemic hit: first incredulity; followed shortly by fear and uncertainty; then a grudging acceptance, or what you may call resignation; and, finally, hope.
Somewhere in between all of those emotions, when staying home became the norm, we took solace in the company of old friends.
In the pre-pandemic business of everyday life, we weren’t able to read as much as we wanted. But stripped of the usual outings, we rediscovered the joys of reading.
From early 2020 to this day, when the world pendulated between lockdowns and some semblance of normalcy, reading became our lifeline. It was therapeutic, soothing our soul and empowering us to sort through our thoughts, work out our anxieties, and verbalize our feelings.
Reading was liberating, allowing us to wander into a larger world, even if only through our imaginations. Books allowed our minds to be refreshed, sweeping away the cobwebs of intellectual inertia, indifference, and isolation. They reminded us that there is still much to look forward to in life even if the loss and longing we felt at times was acute. Through reading, we remembered that the world is a colorful place filled with amazing stories we could enjoy together.
Most of all, books enabled us to reconnect with ourselves and with each other. Reading, conversing, and writing about books strengthened our relationship as only a shared passion could.
We have been readers for most of our lives and sampled books from many genres. Eventually, we settled on the classics, historical and literary fiction, coming-of-age novels, and poetry, with a dash of fantasy and science fiction.
Allow us to share with you some of our all-time favorites. These are books we have read and re-read many times, and which we rediscovered during those long stay-at-home periods:
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. Written in an Austen-like style (Jane Austen does make a cameo in the story), this excellent historical fiction novel heralds women’s landmark contributions to the science of evolutionary biology, geology, and paleontology. Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot are neighbors in the British seaside town of Lyme Regis. They are also fossil-hunters. Mary hunts to earn a living. Elizabeth collects out of scientific curiosity. Unfortunately, in the 19th century, science was still a male-centric endeavor. Despite their amazing fossil discoveries which find their way into the British Natural History Museum collections and onto scientific papers written by men at the time, Mary and Elizabeth remained uncredited for years. A stunning novel based on true events, Remarkable Creatures is a sublime exploration of the critical role of women in science, the importance of intellectual integrity, and the power of friendship.
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. This novella is a love letter to books wrapped in a lighthearted story about how Queen Elizabeth II discovers, and becomes preoccupied with, reading for pleasure. She eventually neglects many of her daily obligations in favor of alone time with a good book. While this story is fictional, fans of the hit Netflix series The Crown will no doubt see its parallels with the season 1 episode entitled “Scientia Potentia Est” – which is largely based on historical fact – where the Queen hires a private tutor to complement her frustratingly incomplete education. Within its modest 124 pages, The Uncommon Reader entertains while encouraging us to discover the wonders of reading.
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. This novel about a spunky and charming orphan girl adopted by middle-aged siblings living in Prince Edward Island, Canada is endearing. Anne Shirley cannot seem to get her head out of the clouds enough to finish her schoolwork or house chores. This vexes adoptive parent Marilla Cuthbert to no end, but enchants Marilla’s brother Matthew who indulges Anne’s penchant for adventure and fantasy. As Anne settles into provincial life in the town of Avonlea, her uncanny ability to find magic in the everyday wins over her best friend Diana, her classmates, and us readers. The immense popularity of this book spawned an anthology of sequels called The Anne Books, as well as adaptations on stage, television, animation, and film. While considered a children’s classic, Anne of Green Gables appeals to readers of all ages and offers more wisdom and pathos than many of today’s novels.
The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson. The greatest living writer on science (a recognition bestowed by The Times of London) tackles the importance of protecting and preserving our world’s biodiversity in this concise yet comprehensive treatise on how humans have altered the natural environment in the quest for economic development, oftentimes unknowingly pushing several other species to the brink of global extinction. The Future of Life brims with scientific data collated from diverse fields of mathematical, biological, and social sciences. But instead of the pontification of a university lecture, the book reads more like a relaxed conversation over cups of coffee. In this way, Professor Wilson is able to hold our attention and encourage us to learn more about this pressing issue.
The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Hours follows three women whose lives are inextricably linked, though separated by decades: author Virginia Woolf who, in 1923 Richmond, is writing her novel Mrs. Dalloway about a day in the life of a woman in the midst of organizing a dinner party; homemaker Laura Brown who is reading Mrs. Dalloway in 1949 Los Angeles while planning a birthday party for her husband; and Clarissa Vaughan who is living an almost exact true-to-life version of the same novel in 1999 New York. This transcendent story about the things people do to escape the confines of their everyday lives is evocative, affects us profoundly, and lingers in our consciousness long after reading it.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. This memoir chronicles the author’s 20-year correspondence with Marks & Co., an antiquarian bookseller located in that eponymous London address. What began as a customer’s request to purchase a few rare secondhand books blossomed into a lifelong bond among the author, Marks & Co.’s principal book buyer Frank Doel and his family, and many of the bookshop’s staff. As an epistolary book, it offers a unique insight into the cultural differences between the Americans and the British. Ms. Hanff’s letters are lit with spirit and a considerable amount of self-assuredness. The letters from Mr. Doel, on the other hand, are marked with the quintessential British reserve and wry sense of humor. While many of the letters were lost and so are not included in this memoir, those that do appear in 84, Charing Cross Road paint an amazing picture of friendships built on, and which began with, a love of books.
Possession by A.S. Byatt. The literary equivalent of a detective mystery, this Booker Prize-winning novel tells the story of Maud Bailey and Roland Michell, university researchers who investigate an alleged clandestine love affair between celebrated Victorian-era poets Randolph Henry Ash, renowned for marital fidelity, and Christabel LaMotte, famous for being a spinster recluse. Maud and Roland unearth letters, poems with hidden meanings and other surreptitious clues that help them piece together this intriguing puzzle, all the while navigating the politics of academia and the schemes of double-dealing colleagues. Along the way, they discover truths about themselves and each other as much as those related to the poets they are studying. Possession is exquisite and is in turns thoughtful, scholarly, and suspenseful.
Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley. Nick Naylor is a shrewd, brilliant, and amoral lobbyist working for big tobacco companies at a time when the harmful effects of smoking were still not definitively proven. He is someone who can charm you into thinking that smoking is cool and may even be beneficial to your health. In the course of his work, Nick runs afoul of a particularly feisty anti-tobacco politician and an ambitious investigative reporter who want nothing more than to see him fail. With irreverent humor and political-incorrectness aplenty, this highly entertaining satire provokes us to question the nature of truth in an era of spin and propaganda. Though published in 1994, Thank You For Smoking has perhaps become even more relevant in this age of social media, where the spread of misinformation and disinformation is frighteningly rampant and oftentimes unchecked.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau. If you saw the late great Robin Williams’ movie Dead Poets Society, you may remember this quote from Walden: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life…and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Written as a memoir of the time he chose to live alone – away from civilization – in a log cabin near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, Thoreau’s masterpiece oftentimes reads like a natural history field guide to the pond and forest that bears its name. It offers insightful, even poetic, observations about the natural environment. The book is a celebration of a life at peace with itself and with nature, without the distractions and haste that modern-day existence serves in spades. Walden is a reminder that it is possible, even desirable, for humanity to coexist with nature.
Emma by Jane Austen. Acclaimed by literary experts as Austen’s most polished work, this romantic comedy features the delightful Emma Woodhouse, a rich, well-meaning and well-educated single woman who fancies herself a matchmaker for other single women in her country village of Highbury. Her schemes go awry when she repeatedly misreads the intentions, feelings, and actions of the people she seeks to match, leading to a veritable comedy of errors. Although Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are her most well-known novels, Emma is Jane Austen at her witty and satirical best and shows the beloved author at the height of her literary powers. Emma was the first Austen book both of us read and where we began our lifelong love for one of the most treasured and recognizable authors of the English language.
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. The ominous greeting “My Dear Unfortunate Reader” sets the tone for this compelling historical fiction novel about one woman’s search for her father who went missing during his quest for Dracula. Paul and her daughter are living in Amsterdam when she comes across a curious vellum-bound book associated with Vlad Tepes, the 15th-century tyrant who was the historical inspiration for Bram Stoker’s fictional Count Dracula. Paul disappears after unearthing clues that Vlad Tepes may still be alive in the 20th century. His daughter, the book’s narrator, sets out across Europe in search of him and the truth behind the mystery of Dracula that has eluded both her father and his mentor for decades. The Historian is unputdownable, and is thrilling and haunting in equal measure.
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Among the literary gems published in the years leading up to the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2020 is this remarkable Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about coming-of-age in the treacherous political terrain of 1930s Europe. It follows Marie-Laure and Werner Pfennig as they attempt to come to terms with their daunting personal struggles – she with the blindness that almost cuts her off from the world, he with a fate that threatens to cut him off from the full life he desires – while Nazi Germany ignites the fires of war on the continent. All The Light We Cannot See is exquisite and moving, reminding us that there is hope despite seemingly unconquerable odds, and that help in our darkest hours can come from the unlikeliest places.
We have read and written about many other books (and comic books) over the last two years. But in these books, we found a source of comfort and epiphany in the midst of these uncertain times. We hope that they will do for you what they did for us – inform, entertain, move, and inspire. Some of them may even make you laugh despite these pandemic-induced lockdowns.
Books are windows to our history and this changing world. If art imitates life, then literature is its truest representation and books are its most ubiquitous advocate.
Reading does not just provide information. It gives us a broader, more inclusive perspective of the world around us. It makes us more adept at forming our own thoughts and sharing them with others. We read because ignorance and a limited worldview are severe handicaps in our information-infused, politically correct, and increasingly compact global community.
More than this, reading allows us to become more attuned to our humanity. Literary classics, poetry, history and historical fiction, memoirs, and yes, children’s and young adult books, thrillers, sci-fi and fantasy novels, and comic books are all part of the indelible record of the human experience.
Through the magic of e-books, public libraries, and secondhand bookstores and inventory clearance sales, more and more people can now enjoy the pleasures of reading.
The last two years may have been marked by a pandemic which forced all of us to stay at home for long stretches of time. Lockdown and quarantine may be the words that many people now associate with this era. But through reading, we were able to escape these confines, expand our horizons, see the world through someone else’s eyes, and cultivate a deeper appreciation of what it means to be human.
About the authors: Rory J. Bolivar is a registered microbiologist, educator, and writer. Robespierre L. Bolivar is a recipient of the Gawad Mabini, one of the highest Presidential honors bestowed upon Filipino diplomats. Follow them on Facebook @robroryreads and visit their website at robroryreads.wixsite.com/bookreviews.
