Uploaded March 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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I hope everybody is doing OK. Here are a few books that might be nice to read when you are stuck inside and need something to help pull you away from the news.


Probably my favorite discovery of last year was.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles



(Official blurb) "In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery."



I also really like

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig
but some parts of it might hit a little close to home if you are feeling super emotional these days.


(Official blurb) "Written as both a recollection of the past and a warning for future generations, The World of Yesterday recalls the golden age of literary Vienna—its seeming permanence, its promise, and its devastating fall.

Surrounded by the leading literary lights of the epoch, Stefan Zweig draws a vivid and intimate account of his life and travels through Vienna, Paris, Berlin, and London, touching on the very heart of European culture. His passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the edge of extinction."


Some others are:

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles


(Official blurb) "On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve."


Basically anything else by Stefan Zweig

And, I know I'm not breaking any new ground here but, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and Around the World in Eighty Days" are both really good and I think you can even get digital versions of them for free.

If you have a local bookshop you can order from, I bet they would be happy for the business right now. In times like these it seems especially important not to forget the little guys.

Also, I want to stress that I'm not trying to be a poser. I definitely having been looking at my phone way more than usual over the last week. I halfway made this video just to remind myself that if we're all going down, it would probably be better to read something interesting and adventurous than various randos' unfounded opinions online.


OK, I hope you all stay safe,

Shawn and Yoshimi (who mainly reads scary Scandinavian mysteries and didn't want to talk about it)


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