7. Best Served Cold

By Joe Abercrombie     

6. Greenglass House

By Kate Milford 

I first heard of this book by noticing the illustrated hardcover edition for only 6 or 7 dollars at BMV in Toronto, and an award-winning young adult mystery... tempting.  I didn't end up getting it, and I slightly regretted it as the beautiful cover illustration was enough to intrigue me.

Then earlier this spring, I spotted a used paperback in a nicely built wooden freebie cabinet in my neighbourhood when we went for a family walk on Mont Royal – it must have been the previous month, so partway into the pandemic. 

I enjoyed it, as it was a charming, pleasant read. But I didn't love it.

 

5. Severance

By Ling Ma

The past few years, I haven't been following new releases and had never heard of Severance until Olman ordered it from Argo before our own real-life pandemic got under way.

Several factors made me want to read Severance right away:

• Olman's description of how the narrative unfolds with a gradual emptying out of a company head office
•  It's a recent work by a young female Chinese American author
•  It's dystopian
•  It's about a pandemic
•  There are literary allusions comparing an infected person to an office drone

 

            

 

4. The Story of a New Name (Book 2 of the Neapolitan Quartet)

By Elena Ferrante