When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro

I haven't read Ishiguro since a lit course in second year university where I fell in love with his novel The Remains of the Day. I found this book I hadn't even heard of randomly at Value Village (thrift stores are such great places to find books) and was really excited to finally read more of his fiction.

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Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

I feel like since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic people have been dividing themselves into two categories: those who want to spend their time focused on anything but, and those who want to lean into it hard. This can be determined by whether you rewatched Steven Soderbergh's 2011 film Contagion. I would group myself in another category... I am someone who wants to lean into it hard even though I absolutely should not. My boyfriend won't let me rewatch Contagion but I can sneakily read pandemic / apocalyptic literature.

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Jaws by Peter Benchley

I only just found out THIS PAST YEAR that Jaws, one of my favourite movies, was adapted from a book while listening to "The Rewatchables" podcast. It was Peter Benchley's first novel and my husband was kind enough to buy me a copy for Christmas. I promised myself I'd read something challenging during this quarantine before allowing myself the treat of this book, but I was practically drooling over it the entire time I read East of Eden.

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The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant

I love trying to decide on what book I should read next ... I always overbuy and still have books sitting on my shelf from three Christmases ago. It doesn't mean I don't want to read them, I just never know what I'm going to feel like reading after finishing one book. I've spent the last year alternating between fiction and nonfiction and that's my only real guiding rule. But I had to break it and read two nonfictions back-to-back because Ben shamed me into reading The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed which he bought me for Christmas two years ago.

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10 MORE Things STILL Keeping Us Busy in Isolation

We miss restaurants. I think we're all getting antsy, and we had a trip planned for May 24 to see each other that will sadly not happen. If there was ever a time to not feel guilty about sitting on the couch 24/7, it's now. We all deserve it. Here are 10 things we've been doing since our last post to work through this terrible time.

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East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Man, I have thought about reading this book for a long time. I read Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in grade 12 AP English and fell in love with his writing. Years later I dated a guy whose brother had a "Thou Mayest" tattoo, and I've been thinking about reading this ever since. Meg then read it during our MA and loved it, so when I saw a copy at a garage sale last summer it felt like a sign. I've been staring at it on my shelf intimidated by its girth ever since, but when we all got thrown into quarantine I finally had no more excuses.

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Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Something that is newly important to me is keeping up with current books. I've been spending the last year alternating between fiction and nonfiction and felt this would be a good pick to finish off 2019 (the year it was published). I should also thank Ben's mom Laurie for giving me this book while I was in Ontario for work! I hadn't heard of it before and once I saw Reese Witherspoon's company optioned it for a miniseries I knew I needed to read it ahead of time.

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The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

I really, really loved HBO's adaptation of Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies and wanted to read this in advance of it being adapted for television in the near future. I really thought I read Big Little Lies but having read this Moriarty novel I now doubt that I have. She perfectly combines a thrilling mystery with deep characters we can relate to, all with some of chick-lit themes that make her books really approachable. The Husband's Secret is very good and I ignored all adult responsibilities to read it over the course of a weekend.

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10 Things Keeping Us Busy in Isolation

We may have been telling people reading and television were our favourite hobbies for years, but turns out it's going out to eat and perusing non-essential businesses. Luckily for us though, we do really like reading and television. Here are 10 things we've been entertaining ourselves with:

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On Writing by Stephen King

I have listened to writers recommend Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft over and over again and finally picked it up near the end of 2019. I remember listening to an interview with him on CBC where he talked about how happy it makes him that people want to come home after a long day at work and pick up one of his books. It was so clear how much he loves reading and I found the interview really endearing. That being said, I've never read a single book by King... but I somehow consider myself a long-time admirer. On Writing is the first work I've picked up from him, and I'm really glad I did.

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American Sniper by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice

My husband has a ton of army memoirs and war books, he really likes history and the military, but he doesn't really like reading. I don't know what he planned to do with his collection but it would take him an entire lifetime to get through it. I decided to try some of his books that interested me. I've seen the movie adaptation of American Sniper and thought it would be cool to read and compare. I'm not a history buff but I like modern military stories and am fascinated with their training.

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The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion

The Last Thing He Wanted is one of my favourite fiction books by Joan Didion. I've read it four times and the reason I return to it over and over again is because I think this book is the best representation of her writing style. I remember being so impressed with the way it was written that I didn't really care that I found the plot incredibly difficult to follow. I was joking with Meg that even on my fourth re-read I still don't really know who did what, but that is absolutely not the point of reading Elena McMahon's story.

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