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Did This Happen To You Too?


I have a confession to make: Ever since COVID-19 struck, I’ve found it difficult to read even the best of books. I love nothing more than hunkering down with a fabulous read but last year my mind darted all over. I couldn’t sit still and I couldn’t focus on any book. Did this also happened to you?

By the end of the year I had a stack of fourteen books on my bedside table all crying out for me to continue reading them. In the living room there were another twelve books and one or two books in the car. I tried to read them. I really did. Books have always been my escape but there was no escaping COVID-19 and the horrific stories of sickness and death. It didn’t help that my two eldest sons, John and Mike are both General Medicine Internists working in hospitals on the frontlines. Or, that my husband is working with Toronto Public Health.

Fear took over. I gathered the books I’d started and put them all  downstairs on my read-one-day shelf. I decided I’d wait until the New Year, starting fresh with whatever books I’d received for Christmas. The pandemic still haunts us, but I must have shaken some cobwebs from my brain. Since January 1 I’ve been able to focus on books again, although not for the long stretches I used to manage pre-COVID-19.

What happened? I got tough on myself. Now I put a timer on for one-hour and force myself to sit and read until the timer rings. I’ve also used this trick with writing on days when the words seem nowhere to be found. Sit for one hour, just one hour, I force myself. Somehow the words manage to flow and sometimes I’ll end up writing for two or three hours. Pure magic!

 It’s so delicious to enjoy reading again. I’m loving the eclectic collection I received from family and friends that includes memoirs, one children’s book, one young-adult and one fiction. I’ve read three of them to date and look forward to diving into the rest of them. I’m aiming for a book a week.

Today I ordered two new books for someone recuperating in hospital. I wasn’t searching for home-grown talent, but after ordering I realize both are written by Canadians. Bonus! I ordered Our Darkest Night: A Novel of Italy and the Second World War by Jennifer Robson and Push by Ashley Audrain. I was astonished to read in The Globe and Mail that Audrain, a fist-time author, inked a multimillion-dollar deal and has sold the film rights to a major producer. Congratulations! For a writer, it doesn’t get sweeter than that.

What are you reading?

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