Literary Hub's Personalized Quarantine Book Recommendations

Literary Hub asked readers to send them a list of their favorite books. Based on these choices they recommend a book to read in these difficult times. Andre P's favourites align perfectly with mine. The book LH recommends is The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. I'll add it to my To Read list.

Andre P. loves:
Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ann Patchett, The Dutch House
Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy
Anything by Deborah Levy 

Lit Hub recommends:
I would describe the narrators of most of the above books as solitary ones. Even when they are around crowds, they seem somehow by themselves, within themselves, as they discern the world, accept the world, or turn away from it. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson is what I will recommend to you: it is solitary too, but in a sweet way, in a way that makes it seem as though there isn’t all that much to need that you can’t create for yourself. In fact, this book is perfect for quarantine: it takes place on an island in the summer, about a six-year-old girl and her aging grandmother. They are together, but embarking on their own understanding of what life will mean: the girl is just beginning her life, the grandmother is accepting the end. What’s created in this book is a complete world, through their conversations and games and squabbles and adventures. Days turn to weeks; they watch the seasons change around them. They’re all each other has, that and the island itself, and for them, it’s enough. –Julia Hass, Editorial Fellow

Lots more recommendations: Literary Hub