Read It and Weep (If That Helps)
A list of inspiring, thought-provoking (and some escapist) books for tough times.
I was having a bit of a bleak night as a parent about a week ago, and reached out to my community of Twitterspherians for some guidance: Is there a novel you read at a trying or bleak time in your life, especially college, that made you feel better, or offered hope?
Sometimes, even surrounded by people you love and people who love you, it’s hard to make sense of it all, as well as hard to know the right thing to do, so I am grateful for all your suggestions.
I suspect the coming semester may be another challenging one for college students everywhere—and parents—and, gosh, just humans in general. (Although dogs might be happy we’re still at home.) I plan to gather a selection of these books and send them off with some of my favorite college kids.
And leave a few on my bedside table for reading as well.
Below is a list of some of the books on the list. Some, like The Little Prince and author Jane Austen, were mentioned often, which makes me think even more highly of my Twitter friends.
No recipe from me today, although I did just enjoy a small oat scone earlier and my hands are still sticky from the marmalade.
Are you reading anything wonderful now? Fiction? Non-fiction? An article online? A particularly exciting back of a cereal box? What books should I add to the list? Please let me know below.
Books of Comfort, Inspiration and Solace
(alphabetical by author’s last name)
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amos
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
Any/All Jane Austen
Illusions, Richard Bach
The Tiger's Woman, Celeste de Blasis
The Clown, Heinrich Böll
Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
Understood Betsy, Dorothy Canfield Fisher
The Hearing Trumpet, Leonora Carrington
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, Michael Chabon
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Alchemist, Paul Coelho
Just read all of Laurie Colwin, start with Happy All the Time (Marissa here: I personally rec Home Cooking and More Home Cooking)
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
The Prophet, Khalil Gibran
Siddartha, Hermann Hesse
The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston.
Blood Memory, Greg Iles
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Ulysses, James Joyce
The Stand, Stephen King
Under the Whispering Door, T.J. Klune
Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maugham
Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
Anne of Green Gables series, Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Clarissa, Samuel Richardson
The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
The Awful Rowing Towards God, Anne Sexton
Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
Remember! Buy from an independent bookstore if you can. My personal favorite is Montclair’s Watchung Booksellers. Also tops of my list is the newly opened Frenchtown Bookshop. Both will happily ship to you.
When this world becomes too much for me, I escape to Pern. The Dragonrider series by Anne and Todd McCaffrey. I can lose myself there a while.
Love your list, Marissa! I'd like to add "What Ho, Jeeves," and every other book written by the illustrious genius, P.G. Wodehouse!