Books for the Sick Bed

Since we are (fingers crossed) back in the land of the healthy, I am going to have pity on your poor, miserable, sick souls and give you some reading suggestions so that you can be entertained while you lie on your couch/bed/bathroom floor feeling like death. But please don't breathe too hard on whatever screen you're using to read this because I don't want you to transmit the flu back to us via the Internet. It's possible, I'm sure.

First, you should continue reading The Long Winter out loud as a family because nothing will put the flu in perspective like the Ingalls family simultaneously starving and freezing to death...and still having a good attitude about it.

Then, you should read a selection of light novels so that you can be entertained without actually having to turn your brain on. Some suggestions include: the Cecilia and Kate novels by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (because snarky, letter writing cousins who dabble in magic help keep up your spirits) or, if laughing too hard is setting off coughing fits, you could try Patricia C. Wrede's Lyra series (world building fantasy with some fun twists but not as much hilarity) or, if fantasy is not your thing, Ally Carter's Gallagher Girl series (although some would claim that a bunch of sixteen year old girls attending spy school and saving the world is pretty fantastical). If you are male and none of these options appeal to you, Naomi Novik's Temeraire series might interest you with the Napoleonic Wars reimagined...with dragons.

Twinkle would like to remind you that an apple a day
keeps the doctor away. The picture is blurry because she
never stops moving. Ever.

Then, when you're just starting to feel well enough to begin thinking real thoughts again but not well enough to process thoughts past "We've run out of juice. Thank God for curbside pick up." or "Someone really needs to sanitize the house. Is anyone here named 'Someone'?", you can move on to Katherine Reay's The Austen Escape, which was--to my relief--not just a rewrite of Shannon Hale's Austenland, but actually a good read in its own right (I love how Reay consistently provides characters whose brains work differently than mine). For only $1.99 on Kindle, it was a great way to get through the last few days of real sick (fine: I read it in a day, sue me), although not my favorite of Reay's books, partially due to the frequently bubble gum references, which is purely my own pet peeve. My skin crawled just writing that.

Finally, when life starts to seem like more than just surviving the flu but you're still rebuilding your arsenal of energy, grab a copy of Helen Simonson's The Summer Before the War (I laughed, I cried, I sent dozens of quotations to my sister via text message) or, if you're up for a real challenge, Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. The Summer Before the War is set in a small village in England during the lead in to WWI and subtly covered more depth than I anticipated (and that was after having already read Simonson's Major Pettigrew). As to Quiet, I'm only halfway through because nonfiction evidently uses a different part of my brain that has not been as well exercised, but wow...so much food for thought. I texted the Man about ten pages in and told him to immediately add it to his To Be Read list. If you are an introvert or have an introvert in your life, Quiet is worth the time. It's helping me think through cultural values and personal strengths, while also encouraging me to see the value of extroverts who help balance things out. I've been reading Quiet lately while washing dishes (our dishwasher has been broken) and taking the time to really think about what I'm reading while I dry off enough of a finger to swipe to the next page on my kindle app.

If apples aren't your style, eating bubble bath might
manage to kill off some of the flu germs.
Just a suggestion.

So, here's to your health and your reading life. May they both live long and prosper. And may the flu season make a permanent exit at the end of January this year instead of petering out some time in March. I believe!