Stuck in the house? No one gets any points of virtue for suffering since we are all suffering and must press on. But we can all use this time of misery to fortify our characters. Here are some ideas:
- Keep writing. You can say, “I was able to accomplish polishing my book because of the pandemic.” How many of your friends in the real world (as defined by those who don’t attend writers conferences) can say that?
- To impress your most devout Christian friends, read more Christy Award winners than they have. Here’s a link to get you started.
- Read more books by Christy Awards Hall-of-Fame winners.
- If you’d rather outdo your neighborhood intellectual snob, read or revisit weighty (and I do mean weighty) classics you had to read in high school, but can consume with new eyes today. Watching the movie does NOT count. READ THE BOOK.
Here are a few suggestions:
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Not up for something quite so long? Consider these:
No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Portable Dorothy Parker
Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1984 by George Orwell
Happy reading, and please stay safe and well.
Your turn:
Add your own favorites!
