Life is hard. And making space for our reading life can be even harder.
Here’s a list of books sure to inspire your reading life when you need a little lift. Books with bookish settings, bookish plots and books that mention MORE books are just the things you need to get out of a reading rut.
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The Last Chance Library Paperback by Freya Sampson
This was a delightful book and I immediately became engrossed in June Jones’ life. She’s a quiet librarian still mourning the death of her mother and struggling to come to terms with where she is in life. When the future of the library is threatened, June is paralyzed with fear as her mother worked there too and she has years worth of memories there. Forbidden to help save the library by her employers, she secretly finds a way to help…and finds her voice, and possibly love, in the process. This book is eerily similar to the middle grade novel A Kind of Paradise by Amy Tan. One was middle grade perfection and the other was adult delight.
Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature by Zibby Owens
Gretchen Rubin says we all need to have a spiritual master and Zibby Owens is mine. Seriously. While I cannot relate to her wealth and status, I CAN relate to her love of books, the universal struggle to battle anxiety and depression and to figure out what comes next. A fellow book-lover, Zibby reads her way through life as I do, using the words and pages to heal and renew. And while that is enough to lead the way as a mentor from afar for me, her journey to claim her bookish passion and help others find the role of books in their lives is inspiring me to do the same. There might be an obstacle in my way right now, but seeing her pivot over and over again means I can, too.
A Kind of Paradise by Amy Rebecca Tan
This was the ultimate middle grade comfort book. In it, we meet Jamie, a middle schooler who made an unfortunate choice that landed her in the library as a volunteer for the entire summer. Initially dreading the experience and even fantasizing the library might close so she could have her summer back, Jamie ultimately changes her tune as she develops relationships with the library staff and comes to see the patrons in a new light. And as she joins the fight to save the library, she ultimately finds a new version of herself in the process. This heart-warming, huggable book reminds us we can always reinvent ourselves and find a new path with patience, friendship and acceptance of all versions of ourselves.
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: by Gabrielle Zevin
Oh, this book. This book, this book, this book. I love reading books about books. And I especially love reading books about books with a deeper storyline, too. This book gave me both. In it, we meet A.J Fikry, a bookseller struggling with depression after his wife was tragically killed in an accident. Barely getting by, an unexpected package arrives at the bookstore and changes his life forever. Throughout the story, we see A.J. open his heart in more ways than one, move through his grief and reinvent the bookstore as a local community hub. Told in alternating chapters, the book includes short memos of the books that have touched A.J in some way, passing his bookish insight to someone very important…including every reader. I loved this book.
