.357 | to The Rona Readers Bookclub, from Julian

Formed in those weirdly listless/terrifying early days of the pandemic, the Rona Readers Bookclub—comprised of a few high school friends who, camped out back home in the bay, needed something to do and someone to see—became something of a 2020 lifeline. On the most basic level, the club provided structure; every Friday at 7:30 PST, we knew we had somewhere (virtually) to be, something to prep for over the course of the week. But very quickly it became clear that this was going to be about more than passing time, even as time tended to zoom (forgive the pun) by, sometimes extending 3 or 4 hours into the night, as if we were all huddled around the couch instead of pacing our respective bedrooms alone. At first we did indeed read books, good ones too! As weeks wore on, we stopped reading, but we didn’t stop talking. When I finally made the journey back to NYC a little more than a year ago now, I was steadied by the guarantee that every Friday at 4:30 EST I could still log on to see these people who had buoyed me for the previous 5 months (not to mention the entirety of my adolescence preceding). May this stupid horrible pandemic come to its end soon soon soon, but long live the Rona Readers.