What To Do During the 

COVID-19 Quarantine 

Options are shrinking. 
Schools, churches, libraries, and some restaurants are closed. All sporting events and large gatherings  cancelled.  A Harvard doctor released a medical prescription for extreme social distancing. We need to get comfortable in our own skin without social contacts. So, what will you do? Certainly, taking a walk or playing board games with the family are good options for quarantine downtime. You might even start the yard work or do your spring cleaning. But ... here's a better suggestion: 

read a book.

In 2019 AARP (American Association of Retired People) published this information:  "A study of 3,635 older adults found that book readers had a 23 month survival advantage and 20 percent lower mortality risk compared with nonreaders. Reading was protective regardless of gender, education or health."

I'm not suggesting that reading a book will prevent contracting this dangerous illness. I am suggesting that there are long range benefits and, certainly, short term comforts to indulging in a book if you are self-quarantined.

Books have been a personal joy since I discovered the Nancy Drew mystery series when I was 11. My summers were spent on the front porch glider reading through The Sign of the Twisted Candles, The Hidden Staircase, and The Secret in the Old Attic, etc. Books have helped me escape  for almost six decades.

Pa Jones and Nana Jones,
my reading mentor.

In fact, I still read on my grandmother's old porch glider on  summer days. Nana Jones was a glider-reader, too. In fact, she eventually gave me her glider, an iron monstrosity over 50 years old, full of creaks and squeaks like its former and current owners. She also gave me her love for reading and many good conversations about books.

Nana Jones' glider has been
 a staple on two Layton
front porches for over
50 years.

Memories of my grandmother center on that shared love.

When I reached my junior year of college, I still had not declared a major, college being a fun social experience. With only four semesters left, it was time to make a life plan. Dad's advice, "What do you like doing the most? Make that your major." Well, truth is, I just loved sitting on the glider ... reading. So I became an English major, the closest major I could find to reading books. 

The problem was - in 1969-70 journalism, writing, human resources, all the wonderful things you can do today with an English major, did not seem to be viable, paycheck-producing options. No glider-reading 300 level course in the curriculum, I scrambled to take the education classes I would need to become an English teacher and squeeze in student teaching in the Marple Newtown School District outside of Philadelphia before graduation..

Lakeland High School Reading Club. Students
committed to read 40 books as a team for the
NEIU Reading Olympics. Principal J. Hanni,
teachers Mrs. Salitsky, Mrs. Stephens, Miss Love,
Mrs. Walczak

God knew I was bumbling through growing up. Thankfully, He directed me to a satisfying English teaching career that lasted over 31 years. Peopled with a marvelous array of students, colleagues, and administrators, life was challenging, exciting, and never the same two days in a row. My greatest satisfaction? The joy of reading to my students, stories by Kipling, O. Henry, and Poe and books by London, Dickens, and Twain. Seeing my students fall in love with books on their own was the ultimate satisfaction. Our reading team devoured books every year to participate in the local Reading Olympics competition. Like Nana Jones and me, the students have a life gift that will carry them through old age and quarantines. Reading stories and discussing books - only God could have prepared a career to fit my desires and pleassures so well. 

After retirement, a  friend suggested we start a book club. Since 2011 our club of 4-6 women has met faithfully once a month. We've read over 100 books. Someone in the group picks a book for

A discussion leader's illustration
from A Prayer for Owen Meany

discussion, and we come back the next month ready to rip it or praise it. 

Christmas discussion, perhaps, of David Baldacci's
The Christmas Train

Our everyday conversations have been lifted from the kids, food, chit chat, the latest sales, or  health to intelligent, challenging discussions involving topics like war (Jewish oppression in the Warsaw ghetto), survival and success against odds (Trevor Noah), leprosy (Molokai), and abuse (Before We Were Yours). Many of the books I've loved; some I never would have chosen, but every one has expanded my view of our culture and our world and provided boundless food for thought and conversation. Sometimes, the discussion leader even brings a food mentioned in the book ... who doesn't love that! Always, the leader provides added information about the author or the subject.

Recently, we read Christina's World, based on a famous painting by Andrew Wyeth. The discussion leader shared biographical info on Wyeth and Christina as well as additional pictures painted of Christina and her home.

Thus, as an advocate of books, I thought you might like to see our suggestions for your quarantine. These are the club's Top Ten Picks from the 33 books we have read in the past 3 years. (Each month we rate the books on a 0-10 scale, subjectively based on theme, writing style, literary elements like plot and characterizations, or simply our personal preferences).

Our Top Ten Book Club Picks (2017-2019)

1. Molokai, Brennert

2. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Richardson

3. A Gentleman in Moscow, Towles

4. We Were the Lucky Ones, Hunter

5. The Zookeeper's Wife, Ackerman

6. The Nightingale, Hannah

7. My Sister's Keeper, Picoult

8. House Rules, Picoult

9. The Sun Does Shine, Hinton

10. Before We Were Yours, Wingate

Other Personal Favorites from Our Book Club

1. Unbroken, Hillenbrand
2. The Invisible Wall, Bernstein
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot
4. Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder
5. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Brown
6. David and Goliath, Gladwell
7. America: The Summer of 1927, Bryson
8. Shakespeare Saved My Life, Bates
9. The Boys in the Boat, Brown
10. Being Mortal, Gawande
11. A Prayer for Owen Meany, Irving
12. Gilead, Robinson
13. The Glass Castle, Walls
14. Hillbilly Elegy, Vance

For next month's discussion, we are reading Colson Whitehead's blockbuster The Underground Railroad, an intense, powerful book rampant with revelations, horrors, and relevance to our world today.

Books can be life changers. In The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, the blue woman says of another character, "I loved the way Harriet loved her books. It changed her into something different, better, and for a minute I forgot who she was - and who I wasn't."  

No discussion of books would be complete without mention of the most powerful book. Divinely authored, imparting truths for life and living, withstanding the test of time and authenticity, providing comfort in heartache and fear, gifting us with grace, mercy, and hope in the face of disaster and death ... the Bible, God's Word, stands above all other books. Its 66 books, written by 40 writers over the course of  1,500 years, do the impossible: they weave the identical story of God's grace and love.

I've done enough reading to know this is an impossible human feat. The same theme with complete agreement and the same mission by those 66 writers over centuries? Only God could author such a book. Open it. Read it. Savor the truths. Find encouragement and hope in this time of fear ...

while you quarantine.

 Reading.

On Layton.