What to read during a pandemic, including books not about pandemics

It’s the best of times to read a book, it’s the worst of times to read a book. For the privileged among us who are sheltering indoors, the free hours can be a boon. It can also be hard to flatten the curve of anxiety, distraction and unease.

Adding to the pressure are those focused book recommendations that surface every day. Here, then, are some suggestions that span different subjects and states of mind, for those who want to spend some time away from the current scenario or simply put it in context.

1. The refuge of verse. If you’re too frazzled to focus on a book-length piece of work, seek out poems that offer stillness in the storm. Dip into an anthology of verse in English such as The Zoo of the New, edited by Don Paterson and Nick Laird, spanning five centuries from Sappho to Shakespeare, from Eliot to Plath. Here is poetry intended to “slap us awake to our world by means of its alertness to its own”. For twentieth century poems from all over the world, see The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Susan Harris, with work by Amichai, Brodsky, and Apollinaire, among many others.

2. Short and sweet. Short stories, too, are efficient devices to bring distraction to heel. As with poetry, there are worthwhile anthologies. The Art of the Story, edited by Daniel Halpern, is a collection from all over, including Lebanon’s Hanan Al-Shaykh, Australia’s Peter Carey, India’s Vikram Chandra, the United States’ Lydia Davis, Somalia’s Nurudin Farah, and Japan’s Haruki Murakami. Closer home, there’s A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces edited by David Davidar, which starts with Rabindranath Tagore and ends with Kanishk Tharoor.

3. Empathy-generating machines. Fiction is often hailed as a necessary means of stepping into the shoes of others. With the awful images and reports of the plight of migrant workers, one way to better relate to their predicament is by reading Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve, a moving novel of fortitude and resilience. Very different in treatment is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, a powerful Great Depression tale of migration and redemption with themes that are, alas, only too contemporary.

4. Real pandemics. To put the current crisis in perspective, try Laura Spinney’s non-fiction Pale Rider, on the hysteria and heroism surrounding the Spanish Flu of 1918. In Kalpish Ratna’s novel, The Quarantine Papers, an 1897 epidemic of bubonic plague in Mumbai is contrasted with life in the metropolis in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. Of course, there’s also Boccaccio’s The Decameron, the Renaissance literary landmark comprising one hundred tales told by men and woman sheltering from the Black Death in 14^th century Florence. If you quail at the thought of reading all of them, there are editions containing selected noteworthy stories.

5. Imagined pandemics. Plenty of writers have dreamt up worlds that are in the midst of, or have just recovered from, disastrous contagions. Camus’ The Plague is striking for the way it allegorises the Nazi occupation of France, but for something more contemporary, try Ling Ma’s Severance, in which a virus that originates in China devastates much of the world, including New York, where the novel is primarily set. That should whet your appetite for Emily St John Mandel’s memorable Station 11, about the fortunes of a travelling Shakespearean troupe after a swine flu pandemic.

6. Despots and dramatics. Many have expressed concerns over the emergency powers that some leaders have claimed for themselves at this time. When the pandemic subsides, will this be a way to increase strangleholds? To understand that approach, look at Jason Stanley’s How Fascism Works, about the consequences of us-versus-them policies. Then, there’s Frank Dikotter’s How to Be a Dictator, with brief, readable accounts of how Mao, Stalin, Hitler and others rose to power, and the personality cults they created.

7. Alone, not lonely. People have sought isolation long before pandemics, from the so-called gymnosophists to the Desert Fathers to Thoreau.Those wondering whether it’s possible to use periods of seclusion to come up with creative work can try Nell Stevens’s Bleaker House, an account of her stint on a remote, windswept part of the Falklands in order to write a book. (Warning: She lived on a diet of instant soup and a ration of raisins.) For urban isolation, there’s Olivia Laing’s insightful The Lonely City, a memoir of alienation accompanied by reflections on the work of Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper and other artists.

8. Epic fare. Now that Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan is being re-telecast on TV, it’s a good time to be reminded that this is just one of the retellings of the epic. Many Ramayanas, edited by Paula Richman, brings together essays exploringversions that replace, refashion or contest canonical texts. Start with AK Ramanujan’s salutary, influential ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas’.

9. Looking back to look ahead. Are our social and economic structures making the impact of the pandemic worse? If so, what should be done when it’s over? If you’ve asked yourself these questions, try A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, written by Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore in 2018. The ‘cheap things’ of the title are actually concepts: Nature, money, work, care, food, energy and lives. Part economics, part history lesson and part polemic, the book deals with how capitalism, or the current version of it, is hardly efficient or equitable.

10. Laugh it off. The constant stream of updates on social media and TV can be enervating. As Robert Plant once ad-libbed during a live performance of Stairway to Heaven: “Does anybody remember laughter?” Return to old favourites such as PG Wodehouse and Richmal Crompton, or dip into comedian Paul Merton’s recent anthology, Funny Ha Ha, with selections from not just those two, but also other virtuosos such as Oscar Wilde, SJ Perelman, Nora Ephron, Flann O’Brien, Dorothy Parker and Satyajit Ray.

Sanjay Sipahimalani is a Mumbai-based writer and reviewer.