Reading is hard right now. The pandemic has pushed our already scattered attention spans to a crisis point. But even before 2020, stressors such as political chaos and the allure of our phones made it harder and harder to find the time and focus to get lost in a book. Even when we’re not living through a distracting moment, we will inevitably have personal fallow periods when reading as a habit and a respite just doesn’t happen.

Certain writing is able to grab us and shake us out of these ruts—by presenting a breakneck adventure we feel compelled to see through; by gently opening us back up to the thrill of a good story; by allowing us to spend time in the mind of a fictional character. When they appear to us at the right moment and in the right way, these books can act as a bridge that leads us back to the rewards of literature. Below, our staff members have compiled 12 books that rekindled our love for reading after a dry spell.

Vintage

Heartburn, by Nora Ephron

After I had my twins in the summer of 2020, when my brain was as sludgy as risotto and I couldn’t imagine finishing a CNN chyron, let alone a novel, my very brilliant friend Annalisa recommended Heartburn as a “gateway” back into reading. I finished it in a few days, sucking up the chapters like air or a cocktail. The book is a lightly (very lightly) fictionalized version of Ephron’s own devastating marital crisis, when she discovered that her husband, the former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, was having an affair with a mutual friend while Ephron was pregnant with their second child. Somehow, it’s hysterical. Ephron’s tone throughout is part stand-up comic, part beloved friend sending a bitchy, meandering email. In one paragraph, her thoughts turn from despair to suicidal ideation to the habits of “neurasthenic,” poetic sad girls to this take on that famous genre: “Show me a woman who cries when the trees lose their leaves in autumn and I’ll show you a real asshole.” Did I mention that recipes are folded into the text? An actually perfect novel. — Sophie Gilbert

Heartburn By Nora Ephron

Celadon

The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Recently, during a particularly grim stretch of months, I was desperate to get lost in a book.