When I Read In COVID Times
The past few months had us back in WFH mode so it took a while for me to pick up the reading habit before bedtime again. Still, I managed to get some books under my belt by replacing the urge to pick up my phone (habit loop! more on that in a while!). I can’t say I’m perfect at it, sometimes a little TikTok goes a long way but here are some books I enjoyed this past quarter.
For some reason, a lot of the feminist literature I happen to pick up contains a lot of trauma and Girlhood by Melissa Febos is no different. I guess there really is just an embedded trauma in the female perspective which sounds incredibly bleak but also incredibly true. This book got me on the first chapter with the way it juxtaposed Easy A with her early experiences. Anytime you invoke a pop culture reference and somehow tie it all in to the experience is always A+ for me. This one was so very heavy though. I found myself needing to watch some TikTok after just to decompress but so powerful and affecting and amazing.
I always have a hard time finding fiction books that I enjoy so I have taken it upon myself to dive into every book that has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and I’ll be the first to admit that the books I’ve read so far from it have been good, but I was never great at the literary acclaimed ones. So when I landed on When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant, it was such a nice surprise at how much I enjoyed it. I suppose having it coincide with the Israel-Palestine forever conflict that’s come up these past few months, it felt timely in a strange way. This was a nice breather from the heaviness of Girlhood even if it had its own type of intensity.
And because we’re all just a bundle of nerves now, I picked up Unwinding Anxiety by Dr Judson Brewer whom I heard on the Ezra Klein Show podcast a couple weeks back and how he talked about anxiety and our habit loops. The book is instructive and gives you a step by step, blow-by-blow of what you need to do to get out of our usual anxiety spirals and I am sold. I finished the book hopeful that I may one day untangle my anxiety loops. I’m only in gear 1 (identifying the habits) but I’m going to work on it.
What have you guys been reading? Anything heavier cause you know, we might as well pile on? Any fun books I missed out on?
