How I Fell Back in Love with Reading
Books I have loved the past few months and how reading helps calm anxiety
I think my love for reading started with The Nancy Drew Files. My grandparents gifted my siblings and me the entire series (I think we got close to 100 books). I became obsessed.
I’ve never been a big runner, but I imagine a “runner’s high” mimics the feeling of getting into your flow state in your book—when the world around you quiets. I think this is how reading can help with anxiety. Novels allow us to get out of our own heads and fully immerse ourselves in the reality and mind of characters.
Once Instagram and TikTok became staples in my daily routine, reading fell by the wayside (and my anxiety increased, go figure!) Over the last year and a half, though, I have fallen in love with reading again. I no longer gravitate toward mysteries, but rather another genre I have always loved: historical fiction and war.
Here are some of my recent favorites:
The Women
If you are looking for a book that will break your heart in the best way, this is for you. Kristin Hanna has such a unique way of portraying war through the most unique lens. Never before had I read the female perspective of wartime nor felt this deep sense of sadness for the nurses and first responders responsible for treating the wounded.
This book is from the point of view of a girl raised in a wealthy Californian family with an… interesting relationship with war and veterans. You will wish you could reach through the pages and wipe Frankie’s tears, then shake her into caring for herself the way the reader does.
A Long Petal of the Sea
Set in the late 1930s in Spain, this novel describes the life of Roser, a widow trying to escape Civil War Spain through a treacherous journey through the mountains into France.
Of all of the novels I recommend today, this would be in my top one or two. I won’t spoil the plot for you, but expect grit, love, challenge, and history all intertwined.
Flashman
Flashman was a new series to me. Ned recommended this one to me as it was one of his favorite wartime series growing up.
This is the first of a series of novels, and the first depicts Harry Paget Flashman’s journey from boarding school to the British Army. I enjoyed this historical fiction because it showed a different side to war, where the protagonist isn’t always the hero.
Yes, Flashman is fighting the good fight, but he is not necessarily a quintessentially “good person.” I found myself on the internet searching the key players and battles throughout, since the parallels to non-fiction British fighting in Afghanistan in the ~ mid-1800s.
The Nightingale
I finished this novel last week, and it was another Kristin Hannah that I could not put down.
In this story, we live through World War II through the lens of two sisters in France, fighting the Nazis in two very different ways. I loved the style of writing she used, transitioning the narrative back and forth between the two sisters during the war with brief intermissions from the present day.
The Year of Magical Thinking
A list of my favorite reads would never be complete without Joan Didion. She will forever be one of my favorite authors.
The Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir that she wrote describing the year (2003) after her husband died. In short, this is a book about grief and loss. I found it exceptionally moving and would recommend it to everyone, whether you are in a state of grief or not.
Of course, most of Joan’s books make it onto my favorites list, but this is just my most recent. If you need a more fun read from her, check out Play It as It Lays or Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
Black Swans
Eve Babitz, the woman who many consider a comparable author and woman to Joan Didion, has quickly become another one of my favorites.
Black Swans is a collection of short stories depicting Eve’s Hollywood life in the 1980s and 1990s. This novel brings fun, romance, danger, dance, sex, and jealousy.
If you are looking for a novel that reminds you just how fantastically safe, healthy, and arguably boring many of our lives are, this is for you!
Gingko Season
You may have noticed that very few of these novels are centered on romance. This is the closest exception, and I read it in a day and a half.
I had the pleasure of spending a weekend with Naomi this past spring, and I had NO idea she was this talented a writer.
This book is set in Philadelphia, where the main character, Penelope, is working in a museum collection on Qing Dynasty bound-foot shoes. She is a witty, funny woman who falls in love in the modern dating era.
The novel ties in romance, friendships, and a character trying to unravel ~who she really is~.
What I am Reading Now & On my List:
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
Light in August by William Faulkner
Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette- Kennedy by Elizabeth Beller
Panchinko by Min Jin Lee
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan