I asked people what kind of reads they’re looking for to pass the time now that most of us are stuck at home. (And if you're NOT at home right now because you're working in healthcare, groceries, or another essential field, thank you for what you're doing, and I wish you a gloriously long vacation when this is all over.)
Here are the responses I got, followed by my recommendations. In each case, I’ve tried to include at least one public domain book you can get for free online (ebooks through gutenberg.org or, in one case, archive.org, and audiobooks through librivox.org) since libraries are closed. Hope you like them, and feel free to make additional recommendations in the comments!
“Something easy to get lost in, with a healthy dose of absurdity! Just like quarantine.”
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
Availability: Free in
ebook and
audio.
No one I’ve ever talked books with IRL will be at all surprised to see that I’m recommending this book. It’s my go-to recommendation. It’s one of those titles that makes its way onto the classics shelf despite most people completely forgetting about it.
So here’s the deal: Wilkie Collins was the undisputed king of the thriller before the modern thriller was really a thing. His books are memorable, dramatically-plotted, narratively innovative, completely off-the-rails wild, and just plain fun, and this is his best.
In order to give you just a taste of why you should read this book, allow me to introduce you to the cast of main characters:
Laura Fairlie: A beautiful and virtuous heiress. Ok, she’s the only boring one, moving on.
Marian Halcombe: Laura’s half-sister. Shares neither her beauty nor her fortune, but arguably the most badass female character ever written by a Victorian man. Smarter than everyone. Climbs on roofs and shit.
Walter Hartright: Loves Laura. You know he’s the good guy and the hero cause his heart is right...get it? See what Collins did there? Is it subtle? Of course not. But it’s exactly the level of cheese you need right now.
Sir Percival Glyde: Laura’s fiancé, a baronet, every bit as slimy as his name suggests (Collins is on a roll with these names, man).
Count Ottavio Baldassare Fosco: Sir Percival’s friend, an evil, eccentric Italian with secrets. We’re talking mustache-twirling. He only eats sweets and has an improbable entourage of animals that follow him around.
The Woman in White: Yeah, she has a name, but I’m not gonna spoil that right now. You don’t know who she is, but she’s gonna show up out of nowhere and start screaming unheeded warnings and you’re not going to know whether she’s real or a ghost or what and it’s gonna be great.
Look, if you’re not already on board after that, I don’t know what to tell you, but I will further promise you multiple major plot twists (don’t let anyone spoil this book for you) and a pioneering use of the multiple-narrators-from-different-documents technique later used by Bram Stoker in Dracula.
“Pure escapism. Good guys win. Probably something YA.”
“The farthest away from reality that I can get.”
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin.
Availability: Check your library’s electronic resources, or $9 for kindle, or used copies starting at $4 on bookfinder.com.
The first book in the great sci-fi writer’s only YA series. A coming-of-age story with magic, friendship, and adventure.
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
Availability: Check your library’s electronic resources, or $9 for kindle, or used copies starting at $4.50 on bookfinder.com.
What could be better comfort-food reading than the book that inspired the beloved movie? It’s been years since I read this one, but I remember laughing out loud and turning pages with excitement.
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Availability: Free in
ebook and
audio.
If you didn’t read this growing up, you’ll feel like you did. Ninety percent of the pirate clichés you know from childhood (or themed parties in college) are from this book (starting with “Shiver me timbers”), making it a pleasantly nostalgic escape.
White Fang, Jack London
Availability: Free in
ebook and
audio.
I guess this one is less “far from reality” than the others on this list, but then again it IS told from the perspective of a wolfdog. Like some of the aforementioned, you may or may not have read it growing up, but dog lovers will find it warm and fuzzy regardless.
“Something long. Historical fiction I haven't read yet.”
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Availability: Free in
ebook.
Hmmm, long historical fiction...is it cliché to say War and Peace? Cause if you haven’t read it, now’s the time, and I unironically think it’s one of the best books ever written.
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
Availability: Check your library’s electronic resources, or $10 for kindle, or used copies starting at $3.50 on bookfinder.com
I should mention this book’s biggest flaw right up front: Eco wanted you to have to work through the first 100 pages before it got good. A dick move? I mean, yeah. Kind of elitist? Also yeah. But worth it? Look, if you make it through, you get rewarded with a kick-ass medieval and philosophical murder mystery and an ending that will leave you breathless.
The Betrothed, Alessandro Manzoni
Availability: Free in
ebook and
audio
Ok, look, this one’s not for everyone, but if you’re really dedicated to long historical fiction and have read both of the aforementioned, this might be for you. Italian teenagers read it in school, and complaining about it is a national pastime, but I have long maintained that reading it as an adult is entirely different.
Written in the early nineteenth century and set in the seventeenth, the story follows two young lovers from the shores of Lake Como whose marriage is impeded by an evil local nobleman and his henchmen. They (separately) flee the town to escape him, and in their respective adventures they face an uprising in Milan, a lustful nun, an even more evil nobleman than the first, and the plague (so, um, yeah, there’s plague in this, fair warning). So you’ve got adventure, pure-hearted good guys against evil rich people, and some comic relief, all against a lovely Italian backdrop.
“Biography with universal messages, maybe inspiring.”
So first off, I’m departing from the assumptions that most of us have already read
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in school. If you haven’t, now’s as good a time as any to check it out, and of course it’s free online in
ebook and
audio.
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Daniel James Brown
Availability: Check your library’s electronic resources, or $15 for kindle, or used copies starting at $5 on bookfinder.com
Something of a group biography though with one team member as a focus, Brown’s book tells the story of the rowing team of working-class young men from Washington state that took on a fearsome German team at Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics. I approached this one with skepticism because I hate sports and am not easily inspired by them, but Brown’s skillful, character-driven storytelling and building of suspense won me over.
Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain
Availability: Check your library’s electronic resources, or $4 for kindle, or used copies starting at $4.30 on bookfinder.com
Fair warning: This one will break your heart. If you’re down for something that will demand an investment of your time and emotions, proceed, but seek no escapism here. Vera Brittain volunteered as a nurse during World War I and recorded her experiences in this memoir afterwards. Her unspeakable losses and the horrors she witnessed set her on a journey to become a pacifist and a socialist. If you finish it and feel like you still haven’t cried enough, you can check out the 2015 film starring Alicia Vikander and Kit Harrington.
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
Availability: Free in
ebook and audio in
two volumes
Look, I’m not going to lie to you: This one is absolutely not inspiring or universal, but it is a ton of fun. Cellini was kind of an asshole, to be honest, but don’t you want to read the autobiography of an asshole who escaped from Castel Sant’Angelo and who tried to fight anyone who spoke ill of his hometown after like two drinks? Oh, also, there’s Renaissance art.
***
Because I’m somewhat less well-read in biography than other genres, I’m also going to give shout-outs here to two books I have not read but intend to eventually:
How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, Sarah Bakewell
Availability: Check your library’s electronic resources, or $10 for kindle, or used copies starting at $5 on bookfinder.com
This one’s been on my shelf for awhile and comes highly recommended. I read and very much enjoyed the author’s subsequent book,
At the Existentialist Cafe, a group biography / intellectual history of the existentialist philosophers.
John Brown, W. E. B. Du Bois
Availability:
Free text online
Came across this one on a list of great biographies, and think it’s well worth seeing what the U.S.’s best-known black intellectual of the early twentieth century had to say about the daring abolitionist.
“A series I can get hooked on.”
What gets you into a series? Action? Mystery? Sci-fi? Lovable characters? Read on for some very different choices for very different tastes.
The Last Kingdom, Bernard Cornwell
Availability: Check your library’s electronic resources, or $5 for kindle, or used copies starting at $4 on bookfinder.com
I read this one on a whim awhile back and couldn’t put it down. The first novel in The Saxon Stories, it’s set in England in the ninth century during the reign of Alfred the Great and follows the life of Uhtred, a bold warrior in Alfred’s bloody wars against the invading Danes (vikings).
I’ve heard this series described as “Game of Thrones but with history,” and that’s not far off. I will add that if you are uncomfortable with Game of Thrones’s level of violence, this one is not for you. But if you would enjoy a series with blood feuds, contested loyalties, prophecies, viking rituals, and plenty of edge-of-your-seat battles, look no further.
As a bonus, I understand there's also a Netflix show based on this series. I haven't seen it, but, hey, one more way to pass the time, right?
Crocodile on the Sandbank, Elizabeth Peters
Availability: Check your library’s electronic resources, or $10 for kindle, or used copies starting at $4.50 on bookfinder.com
A Victorian spinster unexpectedly inherits and uses her new money to procure the services of a lady companion and set off for Egypt to fulfill her dream of archeological discovery. There, the two women encounter two handsome brothers and a mummy’s curse. Hijinks ensue.
This is the first book in the Amelia Peabody series, which I can best describe as Scooby Doo for adults. There’s usually a murder mystery (or a mummy or something) that Amelia and her lovable and hilarious band of supporting characters have to solve, and there’s always adventure, romance, and some ancient history. The series isn’t perfect, and, being about a European woman in Egypt at the turn of the century, is not without problematic moments. But overall, it’s lighthearted fun.
Dawn, Octavia Butler
Availability: Check your library’s electronic resources, or $9 ($12.50 for full trilogy) for kindle, or used copies starting at $12 ($10 for full trilogy together) on bookfinder.com
This is the first book in a trilogy sometimes called
Lilith’s Brood and sometimes called
Xenogenesis. Lilith Iyapo is a human woman who awakes in the custody of the alien Oankali centuries after humans have mostly destroyed earth in a catastrophic war. The Oankali have kept her alive and healed her of all ailments, and they want something unusual in return. I will refrain from saying more because there’s too much spoiler potential, but shit gets weird.
A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle
Availability: Free in
ebook and
audio
I mean, if you’re going to start a series, why not one of the classics? “God, I can’t stand the Sherlock Holmes books,” said literally no one I’ve ever met.
