The Books Briefing: Read to Find Focus, Even During a Pandemic

📚 Hark, by Sam Lipsyte

How I came to love my epic quarantine reading project

“I felt as though an ocular dial had been tweaked and the details of my life—objects, surfaces, textures—began to intensify.”

📚 In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust

The exquisite pain of reading in quarantine

“In exquisite prose, [Nan] Shepherd writes of and from the senses—sound, smell, touch above all—with such heightened awareness that what she describes—‘a sting of life’ from a cold-water current, the ‘juicy gold globe’ of a cloudberry—feels pristine and immediate. Engrossed in reading passages such as these, I felt present and disembodied.”

📚 The Living Mountain, by Nan Shepherd

The surprising value of a wandering mind

“[Mary Cappello] believes that the lecturer’s role is to activate listeners’ minds—and if that sucks some into daydreams or rumination, that means the lecture is a success.”

📚 Lecture, by Mary Cappello

📚 How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell

A literary companion for insomniacs

“For sleepless readers familiar with the feeling of being trapped in anxious ruts, [Marina] Benjamin’s celebration of mind wandering as ‘fleet and light and connective’ may at times sound strained. But if her roaming induces fatigue now and then, her ‘border-crossing bravery’ and curiosity prove highly contagious.”

📚 Insomnia, by Marina Benjamin

About us: This week’s newsletter is written by Kate Cray. The book she’s reading next is Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi.

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Kate Cray is an assistant editor at The Atlantic.