You’re stuck at home for a week with pneumonia! What do you do?

Coughing? Yes.

Napping? Sure!

Reading? Yes. It’s just about the only non-coughing/napping thing you can handle. So what do you read?

1. The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I know they’re kids’ books, but they’re super fun, and you can’t really handle big boy fiction right now anyway.

2. Charlotte Gray’s excellent compilation of letters “Canada, a portrait in letters.” Two hundred letters, one per year(ish), written between 1800 and 2000. Dip in and out at your leisure as you dip in and out of consciousness.

3. “Chronicles.” A self-published memoir by my great uncle. He tells the stories of growing up on a farm in southern Ontario during the 20s and early 30s. If it weren’t for this book, I would know very few of the stories of my family. It is all told with the familiar cadence of his storytelling voice. Priceless.