Bedside Table: Pair of French novellas put pandemic into perspective Jerry Conley of Portland found the audio book of 'Suite Francaise' to be a suitable companion on his daily runs. Share “Well, I would like to say that I have a bedside table book, but not so. The pandemic forced me out of my gym and into the street for daily runs and along with that change came my attachment to audio books. After a few novels, I decided that I wanted to listen to something that would put our current state of affairs – in which people fight about whether or not to wear a mask – into perspective. I found Irene Nemirovsky’s book, ‘Suite Francaise.’ This book, which is two novellas, was written contemporaneously with the German invasion of France in June of 1940. Ms. Nemirovsky, who immigrated from Ukraine to France in 1919 and became a member of the French literary community, was eventually arrested in 1942 as a ‘stateless person of the Jewish descent’ and transported to Auschwitz. Her husband was also sent there to die. Ms. Nemirovsky’s transcript was found by her daughter, but she never really read it until the 1990s and only then discovered that it was not a diary, which she thought would be painful to read, but two complete novellas.