Sometimes, you need a bit of soothing.
I was talking to a friend this week, and she said her husband was reading Stephen Graham Jones’ latest book, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter,” and I told her that when I’d first started listening to the audiobook of Jones’s “The Only Good Indians,” I hadn’t known it was a horror novel.
A terrifying horror novel.
So my friend not only got a good laugh when she found out I’d needed to take a break from listening to the book because it had been stressing me out – but she was happy for the recommendation. If you’re interested in Jones, who we’ve since covered for his slasher trilogy, the novella, “Mapping the Interior,” has just been republished for those looking to take a stab at his powerful work.
But as we’ve all faced challenging times at some point, it reminded me that occasionally you just want to read something quiet or low-stress to get your heart rate down before the next news cycle sends you spinning out again.
Or sometimes you just can’t focus on a book. When we evacuated during the Eaton Fire, I had the entirely unhinged idea to throw three huge tomes into my go-bag: Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove,” Don DeLillo’s “Underworld” and Laurence Sterne’s “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” for reasons I can’t explain now.
Even stranger? As I was pondering my odd choices in our temporary lodgings, my colleague Peter Larsen posted a Billy Collins poem on social media called “Fire,” which begins:
I’m having a swell time reading “Lonesome Dove”
Glad I still have 400 pages to go,
But this paperback is one
Of a thousand things around me
I would not grab as I dashed into the street
If the house ever decided to burst into flames.
So that was weird.
But really, sometimes a good book is just not the right one for the moment. And while we all probably have a classic or well-thumbed favorite we return to in uncertain times, I thought I’d share some recent books you might like if you’re in search of a low-key read or audiobook.
Just remember that in my often-futile desire to approach a book with no preconceptions, I have been known to occasionally get a book’s genre completely bloody wrong.
So, reader, beware.
“On the Calculation of Volume,” by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland (New Directions)
In this novel, a woman relives the same November day of her life, its repetition becoming quietly hypnotic over (stopped) time. And the days do pile up – the story keeps going across seven volumes. But this day in a life story isn’t like “Groundhog Day.” It’s thoughtful and moving and isn’t really going for humor – unless you find it funny that Karl Ove Knausgård, who authored his own six-volume set of novels, praises it.
“Raising Hare: A Memoir,” by Chloe Dalton (Pantheon)
There’s something irresistible about Dalton’s memoir in which she finds an abandoned baby hare in the snow and soon learns there’s very little guidance to be found for keeping the undomesticated creature alive. But undaunted and unwilling to give up – much less name or anthropomorphize it – she develops a trust with the animal and finds they have something to offer each other.
“Notes From an Island,” by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal (Timber Press)
Jansson and her life partner, the artist Tuulikki Pietilä, spent 26 summers on a stark, rocky island off the coast of Finland. With its cranky birds and harsh landscape, the island was somehow just what they wanted, and this diary-like book, with an introduction by Alexander Chee and art by Pietilä, is a lovely escape from the stresses of life.
“Stone Yard Devotional,” by Charlotte Wood (Riverhead)
I’m already looking forward to re-reading this Booker Prize-shortlisted novel about a woman who leaves her life behind to join a remote monastery in rural Australia. She’s not religious, but finds the quiet and calm comforting even as she encounters a massive mouse infestation and the arrival of a disquieting nun whose own plans seem to upset everyone.
“The Blanket Cats,” by Kiyoshi Shigematsu translated Jesse Kirkwood
I haven’t read this one, but I don’t think it’s a horror story. A gruff Tokyo pet store owner rents his magic cats to people in need of help. And who doesn’t need help sometimes? Anyway, it looks low-stress and that might be just what you need (if a magic cat is not available for rental).
* Editor’s note: This originally appeared in the Book Pages newsletter in May, but for some reason didn’t post online at the time as it should have, so we present it to you now.