It is hard to imagine that more than 12 months into this pandemic, things are in many ways worse than they were this time last year. I am sitting in my basement office in Toronto, waiting on tenterhooks to hear if the province will decide to close daycares too. I haven’t seen my family, or the bookstore, or any of you since my last visit in February of 2020. And worst of all, I don’t know when I will.

Needless to say, reading for me has been impossible. I have read 7 books this year and I can’t honestly remember any of them. I keep a document of all the upcoming books I want and dutifully order them once a month from our online bookstore. Michael calls me to ask for my credit card number (for security reasons he won’t write mine down either, it’s not just you). Mum and Michael send me a big box with books for me and Penny and treats and surprises.

But at the end of the day, the books stack up because I am exhausted from working 12-hour days in my basement, parenting a curious and spirted almost 4 year old (what?), and the constant barrage of scary news. I don’t have any recommendations this month, I just want to tell you all how much I miss seeing your faces and hearing about your lives and what you’re reading. And for anyone who’s feeling weary even of reading, a reminder that although we are all in the same storm, we all have different boats (some more seaworthy than others). I believe lighthouses are ahead. And with any luck, sometime this summer, you can all tell me what to read to get out of this reading slump in person.