Can a book bring you solace? Zachary Mason’s “The Lost Books of the Odyssey” was a comfort to me. Everything about this slender tome — its tone, its elegant paper cover — soothed me during a physically trying time earlier this year. It’s small and slender, even in hardback, so I could easily carry it

Sometimes the book you’re reading is the medicine you need. It can be a comfort, a hug, a jolt. Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny was that book for me during a three-week bout of acute sinusitis. It’s 671 pages, and tells the fraught love story of Sonia and Sunny. Their families back

Our place in Quebec is my place to read, on the dock, in the boat, in our newly furnished living space, in a big oversized chair and ottoman in the reading loft designed for me. Unbroken hours, and quiet. No tv, no telephone, no cell, no Internet. Someone else does the cooking. Bliss. There I