Social distancing can be difficult for individuals who relish interactions and face-to-face communication. Engaging with others is a natural human desire. Nevertheless, during this coronavirus pandemic, reading has been forced upon some who were not regular readers. However, reading is one of the best social distancing tools available to all.
Reading allows us to interact through stories and imagination. It is a creative act that begins even before the understanding of written words. The act of reading is a part of a wider communication process, based on our experiences and interactions with others.
During times when we must avoid physical contact with others, we have an opportunity through reading to diminish distance virtually while discovering aspects of our own personality. Through reading, we can be detectives—deciphering through the vast amounts of fake news to find what is true and beneficial. We can be explorers and griots, anthropologists, genealogists, and political scientists in pursuit of an understanding of our society.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced many of us to re-evaluate activities we have overlooked over the years, and reading, for the most part, has been an overlooked activity. We can now change how we feel about reading by finding books and articles that appeal to us.
I encourage you to rediscover the joys of reading during this pandemic. If you are struggling to find something positive to take your mind off depressing news and the economic recession, try reading an uplifting biography or a humorous novel. Indulge in poetry or a motivating ebook. Read to a child or grandchild or browse a new cookbook. Books have the ability to provide comfort and solace during bad times and can be vital to surviving the crisis we are living in.
Elizabeth Jean Brumfield
The librarians at Prairie View A&M University regularly update book purchases and access to databases for articles. They have compiled lists of new ebooks, fiction and non-fiction, and links to juvenile ebooks, and these lists are available on the Northwest Houston Center Library’s Libguide: https://pvamu.libguides.com/c.php?g=951140.
PVAMU students, faculty, and staff members can access the ebooks using the university’s authentication process. The family reading titles can be accessed directly from the links on the website.
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Elizabeth Jean Brumfield is a distance services librarian at Prairie View A&M University’s Northwest Houston Center. You can read the center’s latest newsletter here.