When Monica Wilcox tweeted this on March 3, it might have seemed like nothing more than a fun thought experiment for most of us. Now, it should be reality for all of us. (If you aren’t sure why you should stay home right now, I’d recommend reading this clear and straightforward explanation with simulations and graphs published by The Washington Post and this advice on social distancing from Dr. Asaf Bitton.)
I’m ashamed, but I’ll admit it anyway: even though I’m otherwise self-quarantining, I still planned to make one more library outing this week. I did have a strategy for limiting exposure. I figured I’d use the drive-through service to pick up my holds and immediately wipe down the book covers and use hand sanitizer until I could get to some soap and water. But I was saved from my own folly with the closing of the public library.
Which does not constitute any kind of book emergency for me. I currently have 53 books checked out from the library. Granted, about half of those are sixty miles away in my office, but I still have a full shelf of library books at home. I have hundreds and hundreds of my own unread books. And even though I don’t like reading on my phone, I will do it in a book emergency. The Libby app and the Kindle store can keep me in new books forever.
But to get back to the important questions here:
Book to read for the first time: I hope there will be many, but one I’m especially looking forward to is Jacqueline Woodson’s Red at the Bone, which I’ve been saving for just the right reading moment
Book to reread: I plan to read one professional development book per week (this seems overly ambitious, but self-quarantine might as well inspire me to dream big), and I’m going to start with a reread of Zaretta Hammond’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain.
Series to binge: I’ll be doing more TV series binging than book series binging, but I do have the first two books in Emma Newman’s Planetfall series checked out, so I can at least do a binge read of two.
Projects to work on: Slicing in March; poetry in April; daily yoga; a massive house declutter, organize, and deep clean; nature walks; low-key art projects. Maybe we’ll even start that Catstagram account I keep promising my son (who is convinced that Chipotle is the next Lil Bub, though I keep insisting he’s more like Nala Cat).
What are your reading and projecting plans during social distancing?
the dirigible plum 
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