What 100 Writers Have Been Reading During Quarantine

The pandemic wears on. We are entering the fifth month of social distancing and generalized anxiety—that is, if we’re lucky. We’re also entering the fifth month of incessant pandemic reporting. Over the past few months, as part of that reporting, it seems like every publication that covers books asked a bunch of writers what they’d been reading in isolation. Not that I’m complaining: I’m always interested in the bookshelves of interesting people, and now more so than usual. This is why I have combed through a number of these roundups and interviews to bring you this treasure box of quarantine reading recommendations. NB that not all of them are actually couched as recommendations. Some are simply reports (see Ottessa Moshfegh’s list, which is the most Ottessa Moshfegh thing ever). But still, whether you’re currently in a pandemic-related slump or a pandemic-related tear through your bookshelves, reading like your favorite writer is never a bad way to go.

Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror & the Light:

Anita Brookner, Fraud (via Bustle)

Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other:

Hallie Rubenhold, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (via Evening Standard)

Frances Cha, author of If I Had Your Face:

Ali Wong, Dear Girls (via Bustle)

Laila Lalami, author of The Other Americans:

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (via LA Times)

Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road:

Philip Roth, American Pastoral (via The Strategist)

Maisy Card, author of These Ghosts are Family:

Jamaica Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River (via Vogue UK)

Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Rodham:

Lily King, Writers & Lovers (via Evening Standard)

Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency:

Douwe Draaisma, Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older
Abbot Christopher Jamison, Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life
Evelyn Waugh, the Sword of Honour trilogy
W. H. Auden
Shakespeare’s sonnets (via LA Times)

David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth:

Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
Hope in the Dark (via Intelligencer)

Susan Straight, author of In the Country of Women:

Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage
Carolyn See, There Will Never Be Another You
Chelsea Bieker, Godshot (via LA Times)

Emma Cline, author of The Girls:

Fleur Jaeggy, Sweet Days of Discipline (via Vogue UK)

Charles Finch, author of the Charles Lenox series:

Michael Connelly, The Night Fire
A collection of critical essays about Kierkegaard
George Eliot, Middlemarch (via LA Times)

Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad:

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer (via Intelligencer)

David Szalay, author of All That Man Is:

The Diary of Samuel Pepys (via WSJ Magazine)

Anne Tyler, author of Redhead by the Side of the Road:

Eudora Welty, The Golden Apples (via The Strategist)

Sara Paretsky, author of Dead Land:

Karina Sainz Borgo, tr. Elizabeth Bryer, It Would Be Night in Caracas (via Evening Standard)

Elisabeth Thomas, author of Catherine House:

John McPhee, Oranges (via The Strategist)

Philippe Sands, author of The Ratline: Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive:

Ann Patchett, The Dutch House (via Evening Standard)

Elizabeth Acevedo, author of Clap When You Land:

Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Heads of the Colored People (via Vogue UK)

Rigoberto González, author of The Book of Ruin:

Anthony Berkeley, The Poisoned Chocolates Case
Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem
Rick Barot, The Galleons
Michael Prior, Burning Province
The Book of Revelations
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
Leslie Marmon Silko, Almanac of the Dead
Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz
Noé Álvarez, Spirit Run (via LA Times)

Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs:

Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other (via Bustle)

Ottessa Moshfegh, author of Death in Her Hands:

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (via The Strategist)
Morgan Smith, Bricriu’s Feast: An Inquiry into the Diet and Cooking Techniques of the Early Medieval Irish
Dr. S. Lloyd Newberry, European Hunter: Hunting in 33 Countries
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (via WSJ Magazine)
Yukio Mishima, The Sound of Waves (via Bustle)

Lang Leav, author of Poemsia:

Alice Munro, Runaway (via Vogue UK)

Roberto Calasso, author of The Celestial Hunter

Andrew George, tr., The Epic of Gilgamesh (via Evening Standard)

Catherine Lacey, author of Pew:

Ahmed Bouanani, tr. Lara Vergnaud, The Hospital
Magda Szabó, tr. Len Riz, Abigail (via WSJ Magazine)

Kiley Reid, author of Such a Fun Age:

Søren Kierkegaard, Fear And Trembling (via WSJ Magazine)

Lois Lowry, author of On the Horizon:

Kent Haruf, Our Souls At Night (via The Strategist)

Vivian Gornick, author of The Romance of American Communism:

Alan Taylor and Irene Taylor, eds., The Assassin’s Cloak (via Verso)

Steph Cha, author of Your House Will Pay:

Ivy Pochoda, These Women
The Power Broker
Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (via LA Times)

Ben Philippe, author of The Field Guide to the North American Teenager:

K. A. Applegate, the Animorphs series (via NPR)

Elizabeth Little, author of Pretty as a Picture:

Quan Barry, We Ride Upon Sticks (via Bustle)

Ayad Akhtar, author of American Dervish:

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (via WSJ Magazine)

Judy Blume, author of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret:

Lily King, Writers & Lovers
Laura Zigman, Separation Anxiety (via The Washington Post)

Kevin Nguyen, author of New Waves:

Conor Dougherty, Golden Gates (via The Strategist)

Jesse Ball, author of Census:

Katsura: Imperial Villa
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
Alice Oswald, Nobody
Gerard Manley Hopkins (via WSJ Magazine)

Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House:

Maisy Card, These Ghosts Are Family
Justin Phillip Reed, The Malevolent Volume (via WSJ Magazine)

Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson:

Scarlett Thomas, Oligarchy (via Bustle)

Olivia Laing, author of Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency:

Virginia Woolf, Selected Diaries (via Vogue UK)

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma:

Jon Mooallem, This is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together
Philip Goff, Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (via WSJ Magazine)

Emily Nemens, author of The Cactus League:

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch
Brad Watson, Miss Jane (via The Strategist)

Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto:

Gish Jen, The Resisters
Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman (via WSJ Magazine)

Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness:

Jane Austen, Persuasion
Yiyun Li, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life (via The Strategist)
James Merrill, Collected Poems (via WSJ Magazine)

Andrea Bartz, author of The Herd:

Sara Sligar, Take Me Apart (via Bustle)

Joanna Hershon, author of St. Ivo:

Phyllis Grant, Everything is Under Control (via The Strategist)

Stacy Schiff, author of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov):

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World
Paulette Jiles, Simon the Fiddler (via WSJ Magazine)

Miranda Popkey, author of Topics of Conversation:

Grace Paley, The Collected Stories (via Bustle)

Julia Alvarez, author of Afterlife:

Giovannni Boccaccio, tr. Mark Musa Decameron (via The Strategist)
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets (via WSJ Magazine)

Stephanie Wrobel, author of Darling Rose Gold:

Megan Angelo, Followers (via Bustle)

Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City:

Shari Lapena, The Couple Next Door
Jess Kidd, Things in Jars (via WSJ Magazine)

Marisa Meltzer, author of This Is Big:

Donna Tartt, The Secret History
Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence (via The Strategist)

Jon Mooallem, author of This Is Chance! The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held It Together:

Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees (via The Strategist)

Thomas Pierce, author of The Afterlives:

The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse (via NPR)

Brian Platzer, author of The Body Politic:

Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past (via The Strategist)

Laura Lippman, author of Lady in the Lake:

Lenora Mattingly Weber, the Beany Malone series
Jenny Offill, Weather
Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (via LA Times)

Myla Goldberg, author of Feast Your Eyes:

J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur (via The Strategist)

Meng Jin, author of Little Gods:

Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (via Bustle)

Hilary Leichter, author of Temporary:

Sasha Fletcher, It Is Going To Be A Good Year (via The Strategist)

Tara Westover, author of Educated:

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive (via WSJ Magazine)

Colson Whitehead, author of The Nickel Boys: 

Will Hermes, Love Goes to Buildings on Fire (via EW)

Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins:

the stories of Alice Munro
George Eliot, Middlemarch (via WSJ Magazine)

Mikki Kendall, author of Hood Feminism:

N. K. Jemisin, The City We Became (via Bustle)

Erin Khar, author of Strung Out: One Last Hit and Other Lies That Nearly Killed Me:

John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire (via The Strategist)

Amber Sparks, author of And I Do Not Forgive You:

Samantha Harvey, The Western Wind (via The Strategist)

Samira Ahmed, author of Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know:

Catherine Chung, The Tenth Muse (via Bustle)

Larry Tye, author of Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy:

Nat Henoff, The Jazz Life (via The Strategist)

Alexandra Chang, author of Days of Distraction:

Michael Prior, Burning Province (via Bustle)

Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer:

Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem
David Truer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
Mira Jacob, Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations
John Keene, Counternarratives (via WSJ Magazine)

Samantha Irby, author of Wow, No Thank You:

Alissa Nutting, Made for Love (via The Strategist)

Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage:

Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (via WSJ Magazine)

Kevin Young, author of Nothing to See Here:

Judy Budnitz, “Dog Days”
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
The Good Thief
Alexandra Chang, Days of Distraction
The Babysitters Club graphic novels (via LA Times)

Laura Zigman, author of Separation Anxiety:

Alexandra Chang, Days of Distraction (via The Strategist)

Gish Jen, author of The Resisters:

William Maxwell, They Came Like Swallows (via Bustle)

Rick Bragg, author of All Over But the Shoutin’:

Ernest Hemingway
Charles Dickens
Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show
Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
Jack London, White Fang
Jack London, Call of the Wild
Fred Gipson, Old Yeller
Fred Gipson, Savage Sam (via LA Times)

Ian McEwan, author of Atonement:

John Eliot Gardiner, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven (via WSJ Magazine)

Sarah Gailey, author of Upright Women Wanted:

Lauren Shippen, A Neon Darkness (via Bustle)

Crissy Van Meter, author of Creatures:

Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera (via Bustle)

Hazel Carby, author of Imperial Intimacies:

Thomas Chatterton Williams, Unlearning Race
Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, The Grassling
Hilary Mantel, The Mirror & the Light (via Verso)

Adam Levin, author of Bubblegum:

J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey (via The Strategist)

Stephanie Danler, author of Stray:

Melissa Febos, Girlhood
Janet Hobhouse, The Furies
Tess Taylor, Rift Zone (via LA Times)

Shilpi Somaya Gowda, author of The Shape of Family:

Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety (via Bustle)

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love:

Hilary Mantel, The Mirror & the Light (via WSJ Magazine)

Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown:

Mike Isaac, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
Francesca Marciano, Animal Spirit (via LA Times)

Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See:

Bernd Heinrich, Summer World: A Season of Bounty (via WSJ Magazine)
Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Jennifer Croft, Flights (via The Washington Post)

Sonya Lalli, author of Grown-Up Pose:

Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (via Bustle)

Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. The World:

Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Kevin Nguyen, New Waves
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (via NPR)

Ivy Pochoda, author of These Women:

Elizabeth Hand, The Book of Lamps and Banners
Robert Kolker, Hidden Valley Road
Sameer Pandya, Members Only
Cormac McCarthy,  Blood Meridian (via LA Times)

Annie Ernaux, author of The Years:

Franz Kafka, The Castle, “A Country Doctor,” “In the Penal Colony”
the Journal of Katherine Mansfield (via WSJ Magazine)

Joe Ide, author of Hi Five:

Thomas Perry, the Jane Whitefield series (via LA Times)

Enzo Traverso, author of The New Faces of Fascism:

Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia (via Verso)

Talia Hibbert, author of Take a Hint, Dani Brown:

Beverly Jenkins, Night Hawk (via Bustle)

Alex Halberstadt, author of Young Heroes of the Soviet Union:

Olivia Laing, The Lonely City (via The Strategist)

Lydia Millet, author of A Children’s Bible:

Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary (via WSJ Magazine)

Molly Dektar, author of The Ash Family:

Primo Levi, The Periodic Table, Survival in Auschwitz, and The Reawakening
Mike Davis, The Monster at Our Door (via Vogue UK)

Afia Atakora, author of Conjure Women:

José Saramago, Blindness (via Bustle)

Jane Yolen, author of Owl Moon:

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Linda Barnes, the Carlotta Carlyle series (via the Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Anna Solomon, author of The Book of V.:

Helen Phillips, The Need
Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers
R. O. Kwon, The Incendiaries (via LA Times)

Samantha Irby, author of Wow, No Thank You:

Kevin Nguyen, New Waves
Raven Leilani, Luster
Celia Laskey, Under the Rainbow (via Lifehacker)

Alisha Rai, author of Girl Gone Viral:

Kate Clayborn, Love Lettering (via Bustle)

Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere:

Eula Biss, On Immunity (via The Guardian)

Emily Temple (aka me), author of The Lightness:

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle (via The Strategist)
Diane Cook, The New Wilderness
Claudia Rankine, Just Us
Peter Cameron, What Happens at Night
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
Mary South, You Will Never Be Forgotten
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Raven Leilani, Luster (via my 2020 reading log)