Reading for Resilience

What have you been reading this lockdown? Or perhaps re-reading?

I've written about re-reading and reading here a few times. What's worked well: Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. 

What hasn't worked so well: older fiction set in the south. 

And Jane Austen apparently always works, for many folks. 

I just received and opened my Christmas stocking. My sister and I have been filling stockings for each other for some 25 years, ever since we finally acknowledged that our mother wasn't able to manage it anymore. 

I now have quite a wardrobe of masks, including this one, with Jane Austen quotes. 

A mask! And a built-in Austen quiz!

A friend on Instagram sent me to this article by Heloise Wood on the BBC site: What Jane Austen can teach us about Resilience. 

Oh, I don't know, how could we relate to someone whose life was largely out of her control and who experienced financial dependence and instability while refusing to cave to her culture's demands on her time? What could we possibly learn?

TL;DR: a lot.

And also: whatever you can read, read it. Whatever sustains you--whether what you need is a challenge or comfort--read it.