The Books Briefing: The Part of Human Nature That Bends Toward Solitude

📚 One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez

The pilgrim of the suburbs

“The book raises questions about the horrors and beauties of nature, and the power of the present moment in a world that’s constantly being created. It’s also a chronicle of solitude.”

📚 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard

Making art at the painful margins

“Dostoyevsky’s great novel The Idiot … manages like no other to plunge fearlessly into suffering while at the same time illuminating the enduring, almost unspeakable beauty of the human.”

📚 The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

📚 Island of the Mad, by Laurie Scheck

The power of grace

“In these pages, Robinson resists the notion of love as an easy antidote to a lifetime of suffering or solitude, suggesting that intimacy can’t intrude on loneliness without some measure of pain.”

📚 Lila, by Marilynne Robinson

How solitude feeds the brain

“I love the idea of solitude being a gift. I think we can be afraid of being lonely, but if you figure out a way to own it and see it as a treasure and a pleasure and a joy, then it can be quite comforting.”

📚 Absolute Solitude, by Dulce María Loynaz

📚 All This Could Be Yours, by Jami Attenberg

The Reference Desk

(New York Public Library)

Write to the Books Briefing team at booksbriefing@theatlantic.com or reply directly to this email with any of your reading-related dilemmas. We might feature one of your questions in a future edition of the Books Briefing and offer a few books or related Atlantic pieces that might help you out.

About us: This week’s newsletter is written by Myles Poydras. The book he’s finally going to read is All About Love, by bell hooks.

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Myles Poydras is an editorial fellow at The Atlantic.