We’re almost there. We just have to get to the end of March and we’ll have made it through the worst of it — this icy, snowy, freezing winter, the likes of which we haven’t experienced in 10 years.
I broke out puzzles, both of the jigsaw and crossword variety, to get through the days when the snowbanks seemed to make venturing out a foolish notion. I cooked my way through seasonal New York Times-suggested recipes and over-made some old Ina Garten favorites. Weeknight bolognese anyone? No? How about winter minestrone?
Dear readers, I even attempted homemade hamantaschen, the buttery cookie treat to mark the holiday Purim, folding the circles of dough into triangle hats that came close enough to satisfy that bad guy Haman, if not a geometry teacher.
And I read. Oh how I read. That’s my ongoing diversion plan to idle the rest of this month away. I know it undermines my broader point that I’ll do some of this page-turning in a warmer clime, but it’s what I’d do at home, too. It’s funny how entering an author’s created world can make time move fast or slow depending on your desire.
First, please (please!): If you were ever once 14-years-old, idling away endless summer days with your very best friends in the world, pick up Fredrick Backman’s “My Friends.” It will transport you to whatever street light you lingered under to shoot one more hoop or share one more secret or sneak one more kiss. It will also reach over and pinch your heart where it is softest with a rendering of individual and familial pain you’ll carry as if it’s your own.
Want something a little lighter? I zipped through Laura Dave’s thriller sequel to “The Last
Thing He Told Me” (“The First Time I Saw Him”) almost as fast as I watched the dramatized
streaming versions. And I was pleasantly surprised by Rebecca Armitage’s “Heir Apparent.” How many iterations of the royals’ sagas can one ingest? One more it seems, as this fresh take on the British crown is as strangely relatable as it is entertaining.
I haven’t taken, as a friend has, to penning letters in the wake of reading “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans. But I long to hone my craft with the self-belief and patience Evans showed after writing this moving bestseller as a self-described “palate-cleanser” that she didn’t even want to share with her agent after her previous novels’ rejections by a publisher.
Another avid reading friend texted me, “Have you read ‘How to read a book?’” When I
replied “I haven’t, should I?” she immediately answered “Oh, yes.” Upon finishing, I wanted to become later-mid-life friends with the character Bookie in Monica Wood’s story as much as I once did Jo March when I was a young girl.
The characters in “Heart the Lover” by Lily King engaged me so much that I’ve picked up her previous “Writers and Lovers” to meet them again before I met them the first time.
Finally, I’m not much of an audiobook listener, but I tuned in to “Brooke Shields is Not Allowed to Get Old” read by the author who is both funny and a sharp observer of human nature. Her meditation on aging hits home for women of a certain vintage, even if you never were a super model nor woke up in an ambulance looking into Bradley Cooper’s eyes and thinking you went to heaven as Shields did.
As our firewood piles dwindle along with our good humor, I hope some of these reads
carry you through the ides of March with nothing to beware and, soon, spring to behold.
