2020 presented a lot of people with numerous challenges, including difficulty figuring out how to work from home or manage social distancing at work in order to keep themselves and their families safe. Many people found themselves without their favorite pastimes, and were no longer able to go to the gym due to closures. And don’t even begin to start to talk about the difficulties of raising children when the world is shut down.
One overlooked area people have found as a positive way to enrich their mind and occupy their time is reading classic books. On the surface, this might sound exceedingly boring to you. It seems it was the mission of every 7th grade English teacher to suck all of the life out of great writers like Charles Dickens and George Orwell. But, we admonish you to give it a chance; classic books are classics for a reason.
Here are five books that you might find enjoyable to read when bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and many other parts of our “normal world” are shut down.
1. Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment was written in the mid 1800s by Russian noble Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky is cited and praised by so many individuals across the world, political spectrum, and ages it is hard to keep track. He was cherished by James Baldwin, and is extensively cited by modern day philosophers and psychologists such as Eric Hoffer, or more recently, Jordan Peterson. This book is a psychological treat, offering insight into the human condition, what motivates (and doesn’t motivate) people, and the many incongruities that make up life.
2. 1984
George Orwell was an English self-professed Socialist, one who was so ideologically committed that he voluntarily to fight in Spain against the Francisco Franco-ists in the 1930s. He wrote two of the great classics of literature that many schoolchildren are required to read in middle and high school, which are Animal Farm and 1984. Despite his left-leaning political persuasions, Orwell saw the dangers of authoritarianism that were manifesting in the Soviet Union, and wrote these two novels to show what could happen when too much power is put into the hands of just a few. With far-reaching Ministries that infiltrated the homes of the various ruling classes with “telescreens,” 1984 remains a remarkably prescient tale in an era where authoritarian rule has conquered some of the World’s largest countries.
3. The First and Last Freedom
This book by India’s Jiddu Krishnamurti has been widely circulated and praised by intellectuals and citizens alike in the West, from activists such as Grace Lee Boggs to musical artists such as Eyedea. While some might dispute this book‘s status as a classic, originally authored in the early 1950’s, it is a remarkable treatise on how to think, if you are inclined to seek perspectives other than those which are your own. And ways of thinking are certainly important to preserve your state of mind when mental health is teetering on the brink.
4. Pavilion of Women
Pearl S. Buck was an American who was largely raised in pre-Communist China. Some of her books have been featured on Oprah’s reading lists. This is probably her second most popular novel, written in 1946, and is an existential look at what life is about, the various ways we can go about it, and what it all means. The book follows the story of a matriarch woman who wants her husband to take a concubine so that she can cease to have to perform the duties expected of a woman in the days before birth control. She slowly begins to realize what her responsibilities are to her family, and to the World, in a deeply moving story that examines life’s many meanings.
5. The Prophet
Kahlil Gibran’s classic and simple read offers people some timeless anecdotes and reflections on what a life well lived might be. As a Christian from Lebanon, he offers a unique perspective from a place where East meets West. At a scant 100 pages, if that, a traveler who is about to leave a city recounts to the people whom love him what he thinks about life.