As we all shelter at home during the pandemic, we are finding numerous ways to entertain ourselves whether it is by reading, watching DVDs, or listening to audiobooks. I know that I am reading about 3 books per week besides doing jigsaw puzzles, cooking, binge-watching baking shows, and cleaning out closets!
So far, my favorite book has been the new fantasy novel by Sarah J. Maas, House of Earth and Blood, the first book of her Crescent City trilogy. In a world governed by archangels, shifters, and witches, the heroine is a half-Fae, half-human twenty-something-year-old dismissed as a half-breed wannabe until the murder of her best friend forces her into a partnership with a Fallen angel to discover the identity of the killer. The novel is an intense and complicated story about friendship, loss, power, freedom and love.
Another wonderful book, that is particularly relevant, is A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles . In the years following the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War, when the nobility was fleeing the country and Lenin was in power, Count Alexander Rostov was sentenced to a permanent house arrest (the ultimate shelter-in-place order!) for a minor infraction in the grand hotel Metropol near the Kremlin where he was living in a suite. After his arrest, he is moved to new accommodations in the attic of the hotel to reflect his reduced circumstances. The story follows Rostov through his 30 years of confinement within the hotel’s walls and the amazing life he created from the relationships he formed with a multitude of characters.
What have been your favorite books, DVDs, or audiobooks during your stay at home? Send me an email to Diane Lai at [email protected] with your recommendations, and I may include your review in a future blog or in a display of Member Pandemic Picks when the library re-opens. (I reserve the right to edit the review/recommendation as necessary.)
