Most of us have been stuck inside for weeks on end, and in this time of crisis, we all need something to keep us occupied. Reading can be an excellent activity to cope and feel productive while relaxing, and if you’re anything like us, your “to be read” pile, which once stood tall as a skyscraper, is dwindling.

If you have been following our social media channels in recent weeks, you may already know that we have started a virtual bookstore! We have been working on carefully curating our selection, primarily focusing on New England based works, as well as some other favorites. We are partnered with Bookshop "an online bookstore with a mission to financially support independent bookstores and give back to the book community."

Since launching in February, Bookshop has raised over one million dollars for indie bookstores across the US, and with your help that number will keep on growing!

Below we have compiled some of our favorite novels that have helped us get through difficult times, both before the COVID-19 pandemic, and during. We hope you fall in love with these books as much as we have, and we are sending well wishes to you all!

We plan to update this post as we continue our reading spree in the coming weeks, but if you don’t see a book that interests you in the list below, feel free to check out our full Bookshop page, or send us an email with suggestions of books our shop should carry!

(Disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links)

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart -- he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone -- but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.

This 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist is magical and haunting.

Imbued with elements of fairy-tales, folklore, and magical realism, Ivey’s retelling of the Russian folktale “Snegurochka",” or “The Snow Maiden,” is a powerhouse of emotion set in the Alaskan wildness circa 1920. The language is gorgeous and the few characters there are come alive to inhabit a seemingly uninhabitable world.

The Overstory by Richard Powers

The Overstory, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

This novel is the winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize, is a New York Times bestseller, was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, and was a Washington Post, Oprah Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, and Amazon best book of the year. Need we say more?

The Overstory immediately became Jacques’ favorite book with its depth of world and character. Both informative and transformative, this novel is nothing short of perfection.

Circe by Madeline Miller

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

In Miller’s retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey, Circe, the infamous witch of Aeaea, is given center stage, and finally after thousands of years, the agency to craft her own destiny. Circe is an epic book in more ways than one. Filled with magic, it is an exploration of myth, intersectionality, and what it means to be human.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson’s beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family’s dark secret.

Most people are familiar with Jackson because of her short story “The Lottery,” or her novel The Haunting of Hill House. While it is not as widely known as the latter works, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is critically acclaimed, has characters that you will fall in love with, and is a story that will stay with you long after you put it down. Our only question is, would you like a cup of tea?

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Witty, dazzling, and intriguing at every turn, The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue is an irresistible romp that explores the undeniably fine lines between friendship and love. An 18th-century romantic adventure for the modern age written by This Monstrous Thing author Mackenzi Lee.

Historical, hilarious, and with a dash of magical realism for good measure, this novel is an absolute pleasure.

This adventure across 18th century Europe is an excellent way to feel like you’re travelling, even if, in actuality, you’ve been at home in pajamas for two months.

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