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Book Box| When books comfort the soul: A February reflection
A reader in Mumbai finds comfort in unexpected books, a leveret, and the joy of reading what truly soothes the soul this February
I am in Bombay, downstairs in the garden, journaling at the wooden table. All around me, the birds cheep, chatter and squawk. Bright green parakeets take off in flight; a brown-grey kite sits still, high on the palm tree next to me.
But I’ve been restless. February is ending, the year moving forward, and I feel... stuck somehow. And then this reader email arrives.
Dear Book Box, Every January I make a reading goal. This year I made a list of “important” books I’ve been meaning to read forever, like War and Peace and Shoe Dog by Phil Knight.
But it is almost the end of February and I’m already behind on my list. Plus there are so many important new books coming out—books that people are talking about—and I, who think of myself as a reader, am reading none of these.
Instead, I’ve read six airport thrillers and something involving a missing influencer. I tell myself I’ll read “important books” once work calms down, but work never calms down. Am I becoming the kind of person who only reads what’s easy?
Yours, Behind on Books, Bangalore
Behind on Books, I have been thinking about your email for the last few days. You sound like the kind of person who enjoys making lists and structuring your life, and I so relate to that. Yet planning a pleasurable thing like reading can take the pleasure out of it. I know because I’ve been trying to do the same.
I’m on a sabbatical from teaching while building a house in Manali, but snowstorms have halted construction. For the first two months of the year, I have done neither—no building, no teaching. I decided to do some themed reading.
For February, it makes sense to read romance. The world needs more romance, I told myself. What better antidote to tariff wars and the cutting of mangroves? Drown depression in the spontaneous fun of the “meet-cute” boy meets girl, the challenge of a few complications, and then fast forward to a happy ending.
Beth O’Leary has long been on my Kindle, and so I headed for The Flatshare. It is fun and witty, but halfway through, it started to drag. I knew what was going to happen, I got impatient and just skim-read the rest of the book. The next one was Lily King’s Heart the Lover. Everyone’s been talking about it. But the book just didn’t gel for me. The romance seemed forced, the complications artificial. And the ending was so depressing. It’s got to be me, I thought, as I flinched from this one too.
Finally, what rescued me was a most unusual book. It is not a romance at all; you would never find it on a list of romance books. And yet, as I write this, I realize it could well be the ultimate romance—one between a young woman and a leveret. A leveret, I discovered, is a little hare.
In Raising Hare, Chloe Dalton leaves a busy London existence for life in the English countryside. One day she finds an injured leveret and starts to care for it. She slowly learns its ways, adjusts her life to its rhythms. No quick wit and repartee or constructed complications here, just thoughtful, patient survival in a world of quiet intimacy. And yet this book, which is a major deviation from the romance plan, felt still and comforting and everything I needed.
Here is a paragraph from the chapter I am reading—attentive prose about a small life unfolding:
“The leveret crossed in front of the window, disappearing from view. I waited for it to reappear and continue its circuit. The seconds passed. I put the glass down, walked to the back door and looked out.
The leveret stood poised on the crest of the garden wall, looking back in my direction. Its ears twisted minutely, like fingertips gently probing the air, as it sensed its environment. I had never before seen the leveret even attempt to jump onto the wall, which was of traditional drystone construction and many times its body length in height. My astonishment—how did it get there?—turned rapidly to anxiety about what would happen next. Which way would it jump?”
Which brings me back to your question, Behind on Books in Bangalore. Don’t feel guilty about putting aside War and Peace and Shoe Dog for another day, another month, another year. Head straight for your favorite books; read what soothes you. The ‘important’ books will be there when you need them - or they won’t, and that’s okay too.
As for me, I must return to the leveret. Still waiting to see which way it jumps.
PS - the novel about the missing influencer, is it Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang? It’s so racy and snarky - I loved it.
(Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or reading dilemmas, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com. The views expressed are personal)
