Booking through pandemic
Every Saturday or Sunday, I drive the hour or so to the little college town where my daughter lives and studies. We sit on a picnic table outside her apartment and talk while she digs into her favorite take-out pizza I’ve brought from home. The meetings usually wrap after an hour or so; she goes back to her college life and I head back up the highway for my next delivery.
On the seat next to me is a large paper bag which holds a plastic container of cookies, some frozen meals from Trader Joe’s, a bag of pistachios, and a few books. The books are for my mother who, over the next week, will gobble them as quickly as my dad gobbles the pistachios.
While some of us have wandered our way through the pandemic by binge-watching TV, or baking bread, or snacking, my mother has been reading. In the past months I have taken her at least two dozen books. In each case she has read them, offered a short critique and returned them to me on my next visit.
Many of the books were those I purchased after hearing reviews on NPR. Each tantalizing review holds the promise of entering a world of other people and places. My bookshelves are lined with these titles, more than I will ever consume in five years.
I am a slow reader – not slow in the elementary-school slow reader way, but slow in the restaurant critic way. I tend to savor each bite of a sentence, rolling the words around in my mouth and head, reading and then rereading especially delicious paragraphs. Because of this pokey approach, it can take me a couple of weeks to finish a thick novel.
Not so Mom, who, based on the speed with which she returns them, is a real page turner.
Nonfiction is my favorite, but half my shelves are filled with novels. I’ve shared both with my mom and she finishes them all. Sometimes she’ll call and ask my permission to hand a favorite book along to a friend. I get the feeling that once she’s opened a book, she’s committed. Last month I gave her “The Privileges” by Jonathan Dee.
“Is this supposed to be like a ‘Great Gatsby’ story?” she asked in a phone call.
“I guess so,” I said, not really remembering. I could tell she wasn’t into it. “You don’t have to finish it, you know.”
I’m not above bailing on a book, but I try to give it at least 20 pages. If the author took the time to write it, I owed it that much time. For me, 20 pages could be an hour. For my mom, probably 10 minutes.
Of the books I’ve lent her this year, she’s only had opinionated reviews of a few. Of “Want,” by Lynn Steger Strong, she called it “the strangest book ever.” Of “The Overstory,” by Richard Powers, she said it was “long and challenging.”
That book, a novel about trees and the people around them, was my favorite of the pandemic year. I recommend it.
My parents will come to my house for Easter lunch this Sunday. We’ll sit far apart, with windows open. They’ll bring the ham and my mom’s fabled coconut cake. As they’re leaving, I’ll fill a bag with plastic containers of leftovers.
And I’ll tuck in a couple of books, maybe the novel “The Liar’s Dictionary.” It got a great review on NPR, but I haven’t opened it yet.
But that’s OK. Ol’ Speedy Reader will gobble it up, and it will be back on my shelf in no time.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.