Cooped up with a cold? Feverish with flu? Books to read when you have the seasonal sniffles
The “sick-read” is a situational genre, not unlike the “beach read.” Getting the right book requires forethought and precision. Good sick-reads have companionable narrators, and a story that moves — either geographically or in the pacing — to offset feeling stuck. A book can help you shake off the delirium of a fever by reconnecting you with the world outside your bedroom, or it can take you in the opposite direction; there’s something to be said for dipping into a strange parallel universe when your mind is already on hiatus from reality. Dull narratives won’t hold a fatigued reader’s attention.
Portrayals of violence can prove hard to stomach, as can the otherwise enticing food genre. Because symptoms of physical sickness mimic depression (science says it’s true!), this list doesn’t include nonfiction about the existential crises of our time — no climate change, death of democracy, or intractable conflict reportage. Those topics will still be around to depress you when you’ve recovered. The selections come from my bookshelf, but the criteria I used to select them can be applied to your own library — or an online bookstore that delivers, should desperate times call for desperate measures.
1. “MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS,” by Kelly Link
A logical mind resists the improbable. The fevered mind, on the other hand, will go just about anywhere, making it the perfect state for reading Kelly Link’s famously surreal short story collection, “Magic for Beginners.” Within the first paragraphs of the first story, “The Faery Handbag,” Link’s playful yet razor-sharp voice casts a power ful spell. The narrator takes us thrifting with friends, to a family Scrabble game, on a swift bicycle chase ending in the candy aisle of the neighborhood grocery store. She lets us in on her first kiss with a boy who likes smelling her ear. It’s a lively and mostly believable tale, at turns funny and sad. But as with most of the stories in this book, the departure from realism is a big one: The narrator’s grandmother Zofia claims to have grown up in a country called Baldeziwurleki, and furthermore, she says she brought her entire Baldeziwurlekian village with her to America — in a handbag. But can it really be a coincidence that the country’s name yields so many points in Scrabble? We’ll never know. Embrace the fever.
2. “BOOK OF DELIGHTS” and “BOOK OF (MORE) DELIGHTS,” by Ross Gay
“A healthy man wants a thousand things,” according to a quote usually attributed to Confucius, “but a sick man wants only one.” Which is to say, simple things we normally take for granted, like being able to breathe clearly through both nostrils at once, are nothing short of miraculous when we’re sick. Along those lines, “The Book of Delights” and the subsequent “Book of (More) Delights” by poet Ross Gay contain mini essays examining ordinary ex periences that bring the author delight: coffee served in a cup without a saucer; children shouting “do over!” in a game; inefficiency, which could be a manifesto for the whole project. “I love not getting the groceries from the car in one trip,” Gay writes. “Or better yet, I love walking around a city, ostensibly trying to get somewhere. … Maybe it’s a cafe you’re looking for … across the street from a school where a trio of kids — a black girl with braids, a brown girl in a hijab, and a white girl with pigtails — shoot hoops.” By paying attention to delight, Gay claims to have magnified its presence in his life, and this tour of delights is itself a delight.
3. “THE MOTH PRESENTS: All These Wonders, True Stories About Facing the Unknown,” edited by Catherine Burns
When you’re feeling your worst, you don’t want to read about perfect people winning at life with superhuman ease. You want to read about Adam Mansbach trapped in a hilarious bedtime standoff with his young daughter and ultimately writing a parenting rant called “Go the F**k to Sleep,” out of bleary-eyed desperation — which gets him invited to appear as a child sleep expert on a panel alongside actual sleep experts. The Moth storytelling empire has put out a handful of anthologies based on the stories told live on their stages, but this collection — focused on people venturing out of their comfort zones and into the unknown — is especially funny, vulnerable, and affirming. John Turturro’s story about caring for multiple generations of family is particularly poignant.
4. “I, MAYA PLISETSKAYA,” by Maya Plisetskaya
Immersing yourself fully in someone else’s life story, especially if the story unfolds in a distant time and place, can offer some relief. Any memoir with a lively and candid narrator could be a candidate for this type of sick read, but Maya Plisetskaya — one of the all-time great Russian ballerinas — provides a riveting account of pursuing artistic excellence under Soviet oppression, then making the surprising decision not to leave when she finally gets the chance. Plisetskaya doesn’t just tell an incredible story. She also lays bare the hard work and uncertainty involved in putting it all in a book. “I wrote this book by myself,” she begins. “And therefore it took a long time.” Reading this memoir feels like listening to a wonderfully strong-willed friend, except that her stories of being trailed by KGB spies while out to dinner are sure to put one’s sniffles in perspective.
5. “AMERICANAH,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“Americanah” is a novel of exquisite range, artistry, and insight. But it’s really the characters that make the book hard to put down. The narrator, Ifemelu, is a Nigerian immigrant living in Princeton, N.J. As the novel opens, she’s going to get her hair braided and preparing to move back to Nigeria, though she’s not quite ready to admit how much her first love, Obinze, has to do with that decision. But there, in the salon chair, she shoots off an email letting him know of her plans to return. The message finds him preparing for a banquet, leading a life so opulent he hardly recognizes it. So begins a journey that toggles back and forth in time, geography, and perspective. For a sick person feeling lonely, “Americanah” is abundantly populated. It’s also really long — not usually a selling point, but this several-hundred-page-long book may be one of the great, enduring novels of our time. When will you commit to it, if not now?