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Credit: petree95

Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters (1915)

At the most distressing and anxiety-inducing stretches of this nightmare year, two things helped keep me sane: audiobooks and poetry. I've often returned to Spoon River Anthology throughout my adult life, but it's basically been a permanent fixture on my nightstand in recent months. The poems are a series of monologues, told from the perspectives of the long-dead residents of a fictional Midwestern town called Spoon River, now reflecting from their shared cemetery. These vignettes connect the speakers in ways that illuminate the drama of small-town life; they talk about affairs, abuse, corruption, progress, love earned and lost, a lot of regrets. I know this sounds morbid as hell — and in some ways it is — but it's also human and affirming. And it contains one of my favorite lines of poetry, which opens "Fiddler Jones": "The earth keeps some vibration going / There in your heart, and that is you." How can you not feel a little better? Get your copy. — Arianna Rebolini

This Week in Virtual Book Events:

Nov. 9–Nov. 15

Monday, Nov. 9

Ibram X. Kendi discusses How to Be an Antiracist with WBEZ journalist Natalie Moore — hosted by multiple Chicago independent bookstores and libraries, 6 p.m. CT. More info.
Carl Hiaasen discusses Squeeze Me with Karen Russell — presented by the Portland Book Festival, 5 p.m. PT. More info.

Tuesday, Nov. 10

Margaret Atwood discusses her new poetry collection Dearly with Rumaan Alam — hosted by Literati, 8 p.m. ET. More info.
Evette Dionne (Lifting As We Climb: Black Women's Battle for the Ballot Box) and Anne Helen Petersen (Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation) discuss burnout and politics — presented by the Portland Book Festival, 5:30 p.m. PT. More info.

Wednesday, Nov. 11

Emmanuel Acho discusses Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man with Oprah Winfrey — hosted by Flatiron Books and multiple bookstores, 8 p.m. ET. More info.
Curtis Sittenfeld hosts a celebration of The Best American Short Stories, featuring an excerpt from "The Special World" by Tiphanie Yanique, performed by Hampton Fluker; "It's Not You" by Elizabeth McCracken, performed by Hope Davis; and "Rubberdust" by Sarah Thankam Mathews, performed by Purva Bedi — hosted by Symphony Space, 7:30 p.m. ET. More info.

Thursday, Nov. 12

Cory Doctorow (Attack Surface), TJ Klune (The House in the Cerulean Sea), and Jonathan Lethem (The Arrest) read from and discuss their latest books — presented by the Texas Book Festival, 2:30 p.m. CT. More info.
A conversation about Shirley Hazzard's Collected Stories with authors and scholars Brigitta Olubas, Michelle de Kretser, and Robert Pogue Harrison — hosted by McNally Jackson, 7 p.m. ET. More info.

Friday, Nov. 13

David Chang (Eat a Peach) and Lisa Donovan (Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger) discuss their memoirs — presented by the Texas Book Festival, 10 a.m. CT. More info.
Tehlor Kay Mejia and Anna-Marie McLemore (Miss Meteor) and Bethany C. Morrow (A Song Below Water) discuss teen heroines, power, and magic with Emilly Prado — presented by the Portland Book Festival, 3:30 p.m. PT. More info.

Saturday, Nov. 14

Isabel Wilkerson discusses Caste: The Origins of our Discontents with Saeed Jones — presented by the Texas Book Festival, 11:30 a.m. CT. More info.
Natalie Diaz (Postcolonial Love Poem) and Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) discuss their books — presented by the Texas Book Festival and the National Book Foundation, 2 p.m. CT. More info.

Sunday, Nov. 15

Ottessa Moshfegh (Death in Her Hands) and Stephen Graham Jones (The Only Good Indians) discuss characters whose pasts or obsessions haunt them, figuratively and literally — presented by the Texas Book Festival, 2 p.m. CT. More info.
Jo Nesbo (The Kingdom) and Michael Connelly (The Law of Innocence) discuss their new books with Oline Cogdill — hosted by Politics & Prose, 1 p.m. ET. More info.