Readin’ Through the Storm: My Hurricane Irma Reading List

Hurricane Irma is steadily approaching our Florida shores and the state is in a panic. Everyone is either trying to empty the shelves of grocery stores and bunker down or headed north for safety. I, on the other hand, only have family in Florida so I’ll be riding the storm out in Tampa.

With the imminent power outages in the foreseeable future, my main concern lies in my Game of Thrones binge. Being late to the GOT party, I have about 50 hours of television to watch – I’m finishing up the 2^nd season now. How am I supposed to gorge out on the war of the seven kingdoms without electricity? I won’t. The next best option is a nice book.

I have six books that I’m in the middle of reading – I normally don’t read multiple books at the same time, but each of them has halted me. I reckon this is the best time to pick a few back up and give them another try. I also figured I could make a list of some of my favorite books that would be perfect distractions from your discomfort during the storm.

THRILLER AND SUSPENSE

Misery, Stephen King

Adapted into a film of the same name in 1990, the novel focuses on Paul Sheldon, a writer famous for Victorian-era romance novels involving the character of Misery Chastain. One day he is rescued from a car crash by crazed fan Annie Wilkes, who transports him to her house and, once finding out what he has done to Misery in his latest book, forces him to write a new book modifying the story – no matter what it takes.

The Collector, John Fowles

Although this novel’s tale has been used as the inspiration and justification behind the crimes of serial killers, spree killers, and kidnappers, the story is wild enough to trap you from the beginning. The novel is about Frederick Clegg, a lonely city clerk who collects butterflies. He is obsessed with an art student named Miranda Grey; he never acts upon his fascination due to his lack of social skills. After winning a large prize, he quits his job and buys a house out in the isolated countryside. He becomes lonely with collecting only butterflies, and turns his sights on collecting Miranda instead.

PAULO COELHO

Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist, he’s also one of my favorite authors. Most of his novels are fictional yet rooted in his life experiences, therefore teaching and inspiring through his storytelling. He has sold over 210 million books in over 170 countries worldwide with his novel being translated into 81 languages

The Alchemist

Easily known as his most successful book, The Alchemist is a story about a young shepherd who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within. The story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts. 

The Devil and Miss Prym (On the Seventh Day #3)

A stranger arrives at the remote village of Viscos, carrying with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: Are human beings, in essence, good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives.

AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Black No More, George S. Schuyler

Black No More is the story of Max Disher, a dapper black rogue of an insurance man who, through a scientific transformation process, becomes Matthew Fisher, a white man. Matt dreams up a scam that allows him to become the leader of the Knights of Nordica, a white supremacist group, as well as to marry the white woman who rejected him when he was black. Black No More is a hysterical exploration of race and all its self-serving definitions. If you can't beat them, turn into them.

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom. Pecola's life does change- in painful, devastating ways.

The Book of Night Women, Marlon James

This is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they and she will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans.

SCI-FI

Kindred, Octavia E. Butler

Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given: to protect this young slaveholder until he can father her own great-grandmother.

The Midwich Cuckoos, John Wyndham

Adapted to film as Village of the Damned, this story tells of the sleepy English village of Midwich. One day, a mysterious silver object appears and all the inhabitants fall unconscious. A day later the object is gone and everyone awakens unharmed – except that all the women in the village are discovered to be pregnant.

When She Woke, Hillary Jordan

The novel is a dystopian reimagining of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, set in a future theocratic America where rather than being imprisoned and rehabilitated, criminals are punished by being "chromed" – having their skin color genetically altered to fit their crime – and released into the general population to survive as best they can. Hannah Payne is now red. Her crime is murder.