14 Books for Quarantine

When you can’t go outside…enjoy a good book!

I am extremely lucky in that my daughter will spend hours listening to Boxcar Children audiobooks as long as she doesn’t think I’m doing something more interesting, like watching TV. Some days, I waste that time anxiously reading The Washington Post. Other days, I take a break and read books I borrow on my Kindle from the library. Here are 14 of the books I have enjoyed the most in quarantine; some relevant to the current situation, some totally escapist.

Fiction

Novels

Where the Crawdads Sing

I had been on the waitlist for this book at the library for at least 6 months- and then I read it in one day. Set on the North Carolina coast, it is beautifully written. If you haven’t read it already, get on your library waitlist now!

2-4. Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy: Crazy Rich Asians, China Rich Girlfriend, Rich People Problems

I loved the movie and the books are also fun, fast, easy escapist reads. The second and third books follow more of the secondary characters from the first book. A second movie based in China Rich Girlfriend was supposed to start filming this year in China...will see what happens with that.

5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

This novel is written through letters, set right after World War II in London and the Channel island of Guernsey. Also now a Netflix movie!

Short Stories

6. Girl, Woman, Other

I’m not sure if this is technically short stories or a novel, but each chapter tells the story of a different black woman (or gender non-conforming) in the UK linked together in different ways. Bernardine Evaristo writes in a style that is a cross between poetry and prose. This book co-won the Booker Prize last year, with Margret Atwood for her sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments (I haven’t read that one yet, waitlist at the library also 6+ months!).

7. Florida

This is the first book I’ve read by Lauren Groff and I’ve added a bunch more of hers to my list. These short stories about people living in or from Florida are intense, and her descriptions so vivid that you can almost feel the Floridan humidity while you are reading them.

Non-Fiction

8. The Lost City of the Monkey God

This book about the very recent discovery and exploration of ruins in the Honduran mountainous jungle also includes some timely insights into the role of disease in the demise of civilizations...

9. The Library Book

This book almost made me want to become a librarian. It traces the history of libraries in the US as well as the mystery of a huge fire in the LA central library in the 80s.

10. The Hot Zone

If you want some reassurance that things could be worse, this recounts an outbreak of a strain of Ebola in a monkey house outside of Washington DC in the 1980s.

Memoirs

11. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

Lori Gottlieb’s winding career journey to becoming a therapist made me feel better about my current lack of direction, although the parts about relationships in childhood determining all future relationships made me think I should be saving more for my daughter’s therapy...

12. Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

I read an article somewhere a while back by Dani Shapiro about how she found out her father was not her real father by doing one of those ancestry DNA tests - the full book is even better.

Self-Help

13. Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

I had never even heard of The Rumpus or its Dear Sugar advice column, but Sugar was revealed to be Cheryl Strayed who also wrote Wild and her best replies were put into this book. Sugar’s advice is no-nonsense but also compassionate and full of highly personal stories from her own life.

Cookbook

14. Put 'em Up!

Now that I’m finally in a climate where things don’t immediately mold, I’m trying out fermentation and upping my refrigerator-pickle game. This book covers the basics plus lots of recipes - I’m not canning anything yet but there is plenty in here you can do without any special equipment!

What good books are you reading right now?