So many books, and now time to read them.

So many books, so little time.

Oh, wait.

We have time. Lots of time.

And we have books. Lots of books.

I can never read just one book at a time. Just finished “The Searcher” and “Anxious People.” Both great books.

The pandemic was the perfect time to read all those books you’ve had on your Some-Day-When-I-Have-Time-To-Read list of books that is eight pages long.

The perfect quarantine companion is a book. You don’t have to wear a mask or keep it six feet away. You can shelter in place with Barack Obama, Matthew McConaughey or Mariah Carey. You can bring back to life Malcolm X, Ruth Bader Ginsburg or John Lewis.

A book can do that. Bring people to life. Bring you back to life.

A book also makes the perfect gift for holiday giving. You don’t have to worry that it won’t fit. And the receiver can always read it and re-gift it.

The annual Mandel JCC Cleveland Jewish Book Festival offers endless ideas.

I just put these books on my must read list:

Jennifer Rosner’s novel, “The Yellow Bird Sings.” It’s set in Poland during World War II and tells the story of a mother who hides with her daughter, a musical prodigy.

 I’m also going to read Rabbi Laura Geller’s “Getting Good at Getting Older,” “The Last Interview: A Novel” by Eshkol Nevo and “What We Will Become: A Mother, A Son, and a Journey of Transformation” by Mimi Lemay about her transgender child.

If you choose to give books, support your local independent book stores.  Nothing beats walking into a real bookstore, in a mask, of course. Booksellers are matchmakers of sorts who can fix you up with the right book.

Suzanne DeGaetano, manager of Mac’s Backs Books on Coventry in Cleveland Heights, is my matchmaker. She’s been selling books since 1982 and offers classics, mystery, history, science fiction and more on three floors. 

She says people read to escape, feed their souls and to find a way through tough times. During the pandemic her customers bought more cookbooks, social justice books, African American history, poetry and fiction.

You might not be able to tell a book by its cover, but you can tell a book by its first five pages. I give a book 40 pages. If it doesn’t grab me by then, it’s a goner. Suzanne doesn’t even give it that much time. She wants to be drawn in right away.

She recommends Kevin Wilson’s “Nothing To See Here,” “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama, “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X,” by Les and Tamara Payne, “The Best of Me,” by David Sedaris, “Resisting Segregation,” by Susie Kaeser, “War: How conflict shaped us” by Margaret MacMillan and poetry by Cleveland native Jill Bialosky.

How do you find the right book? Suzanne asks people, “What was the last book you loved?” Find similar ones.

Look for a book that offers a great plot, interesting characters, beautiful words or an interesting setting. If a book has all four, you hit a grand slam.

Librarian and literary critic Nancy Pearl once wrote that works of fiction and narrative nonfiction are made up of four experiential elements: story, character, setting and language. She wrote:

“I call these ‘doorways,’ because when we open a book, read the first few pages, and choose to go on, we enter the world of that book.”

“A book with story as its biggest doorway is one that readers describe as a page-turner.”

“A book with character as its biggest doorway is a book in which readers feel so connected with the characters that when the book is over they feel they’ve lost someone dear to them.”

“Readers of novels in which setting is most prominent say things like ‘I felt like I was there.’”

“A book in which language is the major doorway leads readers to utter sentences like ‘I read more slowly because I wanted to savor the language.’”

No matter what book you choose to read, give yourself the gift of words.

C.S. Lewis once said, People read to know that they are not alone.

Every book assures us that, even now, especially now, in this time of social distancing, we are never alone.