Months ago, when I decided to review books that would show us how to simplify our lives, I didn’t anticipate I’d be writing during a pandemic, where we’d have nothing to do except send our friends memes of quarantine drinking, irritated pets and desperate mothers hiding from their children in their cars. Somehow, I was scooped by nature.
So yes, in one sense this is like reading about diet books during a famine. But in another sense it feels right for the times. Because if you are not one of the essential workers making life possible right now — and if you are, you have my love and gratitude — then you are learning that enforced leisure can be just as stressful as frenetic activity. Sooner or later (sooner, please God), quarantine will end and we will again be faced with the demands of our go-go culture, perhaps more than ever. These books may help.
