To relieve the boredom of not going out, the stresses of virtual schooling and our fears about the impending full school reopening, we’re all trying different ways of staying sane.
Last summer, people were taking long walks and riding their bikes, but in the cold winter months, those seem less inviting. What we can do is read.
A book can transport us to another world, offer us a way to understand our confusing times and - if we’re lucky - help our inner fires to glow a little brighter.
World Book Day: Six books for locked-down teachers
Here, then, are six suggestions for books to read (and recommend to your students) to help us through these difficult days.
The Plague by Albert Camus
Not an obvious choice for anyone who’s trying to get away from our current problems, but an excellent way of trying to understand them.
Camus’ 1947 novel tells the story of a plague that sweeps through the Algerian city of Oran. His writing is accessible to all ages, and he weaves a gripping tale full of memorable characters and dramatic tension.
Rereading this early in the course of our own pandemic, I was struck by just how many things were the same. From the collective refusal to accept what was happening in the early stages to the battle lines that are quickly drawn between the town’s doctors and the local politicians (just imagine Matt Hancock in a fez), it’s comforting to know that others have gone through all this before, and survived.
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
Again, not a book to read if you’re sick of hearing about disease. But, like Camus, Defoe gives us a way of understanding our current situation.
Defoe provides a week-by-week account of living through the plague of 1665, and - even more so than with Camus - the parallels with today are extraordinary. He recounts how the plague led to all kinds of false stories being spread, and even offers strategies for spotting fake news.
Whereas we have to listen to conspiracy theorists telling us that Covid was caused by 5G phone masts, and that it can be cured by injecting yourself with bleach, in Defoe’s time people blamed dogs (they rounded up 40,000 of them and killed them) and were forever sticking their heads into buckets of vinegar to protect themselves.
It’s a salutary reminder of the importance of teaching people to follow the science and ditch the rumours.
The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald
Despite the title, this one isn’t about a plague at all. Written in the 1940s, the disease in question is tuberculosis, and the author has to spend a year in a sanitorium outside Seattle as she convalesces.
This is a forgotten gem, and a gold-star lesson in how to deal with isolation and boredom. It’s charming, hilarious, touching and packed with good advice on how to cope with being stuck in one place for days on end.
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
If you’re looking for something to tap into the experience of isolated teenagers, this could be the book for you. The Kafka of the title is a 15-year-old who spends his time alone in a library.
It’s a haunting tale, which shows how we can turn solitude into inner peace. It’s also completely bonkers, and heads off in all manner of weird magical directions, including a man who can talk to cats, and KFC’s Colonel Sanders reimagined as a pimp.
Murakami suggests readers probably need to read it a few times to fully understand it. But, even if you can’t be bothered with that, his prose is so beautiful that most of the time you won’t care that you haven’t got a clue what’s going on.
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
This is another book for those who don’t mind doing a little work. Part set in a tennis academy (the other part is in a drug rehab unit), it has plenty of dysfunctional teaching staff for readers to enjoy.
It also has a lot to say about students dealing with being landed in a strange situation, although it’s fair to say that most of the ways they find to deal with their problems are not to be recommended.
And it’s got footnotes. Teachers love a footnote. DFW’s footnotes are both amazingly informative and extremely funny.
Infinite Jest is quite a commitment, at more than 1,000 pages. But if you’re ever going to have time to tackle it, it’s right now when everything’s shut.
Boundaries by The Larder Collective
At the other end of the commitment scale from Wallace’s behemoth is this new collection of short stories.
No mention of plagues or viruses in the entire collection. But, as it was published in 2021, most of the stories were presumably written during the Covid era, and seem to deal with lives lived between worlds.
From the millennial recounting her mistakes as she learns to “adult” to the celebrity chef causing chaos around the food capitals of Europe, it’s got buckets of pathos along with a good measure of fall-off-your-chair humour and some wild escapism. And who among us couldn’t do with that right now?
Callum Jacobs is a supply teacher in the UK
