Books

31 Great Quarantine Reads, Chosen by the Vanity Fair Staff

Presenting the most absorbing, distracting, engaging books we could think of—from epic Russian tragedies to expostulations that are fun to shout.
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As we barrel through another week of remote work, layoffs, social isolation, and a purveying sense of stumbling through the unknown, books prove to be an increasingly welcome respite from the dizzying and disheartening news cycle. Previously we presented a list of pandemic reads for those looking to order their understanding of a strange new world with the help of fiction; here, we put forth all the things we’re reading that have nothing to do with pandemics. When available, we’re linking to Bookshop, which Poets & Writers calls “an indie alternative to Amazon”—chances are your favorite local bookseller is still shipping out orders too. Be well, read lots.

Laura Regensdorf, Beauty Director, Vanity Fair

Donald Judd Spaces by Donald Judd; edited by Flavin Judd, Rainer Judd, and Judd Foundation

If you didn’t catch the wonderful Judd retrospective at MoMA before the museum’s temporary closure due to coronavirus, the new Donald Judd Spaces is a worthy stand-in. Those nostalgic for old New York (whether that’s 1970s SoHo or Manhattan two weeks ago) will relish the archival photos of 101 Spring Street, Judd’s work-from-home haven filled with his own art and that of friends: Stella, Flavin, Oldenburg, Chamberlain. And Judd’s sprawling Texas buildings are a breath of fresh air. The monastic interiors, spare with idiosyncratic touches, might lead you to summon another titan of minimalism: Marie Kondo.

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Donald Judd Spaces

Taylor Smith, Research Manager, Vanity Fair

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Kiley Reid’s witty debut follows babysitter Emira Tucker through mid-20s doldrums and racism both subtle and overt. Along with some much-needed laughs, the characters’ foibles offer a timely warning against swapping facts for “the narrative that suits [us] best.”

Caryn Prime, Director of Editorial Operations, Vanity Fair

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

This book is so beautifully written, I can clearly envision what the movie version of the story would be while I’m reading. Because I was born and raised in Brooklyn, and currently still live there, this story—about 1960s New York, and the fallout from a shooting in the neighborhood—resonates so much with me. I also just love James McBride; The Color of Water is one of my all-time favorites.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

I read this when it first came out. Now, knowing how the story ends, I am sure I will notice and appreciate different things this time around. It was such an engrossing page-turner, and I feel like enough time has passed since the first time I read it that I will gladly welcome that desire to not stop reading, again!

Claire Howorth, Executive Editor, Vanity Fair

The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak

This crisis is allowing me to engage deeply with one of my favorite literary genres: children’s books! It’s wonderful for my kids, who are one and five, and transportive for me. In true kid fashion, of course, we do a lot of rereading a mutable cast of favorites. Right now the rotation includes: The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak. This book is so ridiculous and fun to read out loud, though it confounds the baby when I shout “BLORK!” (Though “a hippo named BOOBOOBUTT” gets universal laughter). Extra love from me if you’re shopping indie—my family’s store is among the many that have closed and are going to suffer, along with most small businesses, in this crisis. So let’s try to help who we can, how we can!

Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman

Baby’s favorite. At the end, we cheer for the “dog party.” Here’s hoping the world gets back to dog-partying sometime soon…

Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed with illustrations by Stasia Burrington

This is the wonderful, inspiring story of astronaut Mae Jemison, but we also love it because my daughter’s name is Mae.

Eloise and Eloise Takes a Bawth by Kay Thompson with illustrations by Hilary Knight

These are delightful for grown-ups—lots of subtle adult humor in them—and long reads for little kids, so perfect for bedtime.

Keziah Weir, Associate Editor, Vanity Fair

Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin

The title says it all! Colwin’s sweetly peopled, aesthetically pleasing, and deliciously funny novel is about two best friends and the women they fall in love with. That’s it, really! Their shortcomings? Endearing! Their squabbles? Resolved! This is cozy, literary escapism at its best, and the scenes and characters are so vividly described that to read it is like sitting in a room with old friends. Bonus: At one point one of them reads “the complete Proust” during a six-week trip to France. Inspiring.

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

Without the natural order of a week—twice-daily commutes, office hours, evening dinner parties, in-person therapy appointments, Sunday farmers market—my sense of time has warped. It has been rewarding to dive into a deep exploration of this very strange and elusive concept, as elegantly described by the Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli. “Twentieth-century physics shows,” he writes, “in a way that seems unequivocal to me, that our world is not described well by presentism: an objective global present does not exist.”

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The last time I read this tome, I was a teen on a beach vacation—I expect that I’ll get something quite different from it this time around. The sprawling Russian epic seems like a good antidote to social isolation, and as does sinking into another life for some 800 pages.

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

I also recommend this varied triumvirate of new and forthcoming books about the act of writing—inspiring, thoughtful reads for anyone who has decided to work on their own project during this extended inside time. First up, Writers & Lovers, about a young woman trying desperately to finish the novel she’s been working on for more than half a decade, as she juggles two very different romantic relationships and her job at a ritzy restaurant in Harvard Square.

We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan

I love a good campus novel, and this one—which takes place at a low-residency MFA program—does not disappoint. A trio of ambitious students captures the attention of the program, as does the new teacher, a charismatic and difficult young novelist. As their fates intertwine, the story explores inspiration, aspiration, and good, old-fashioned literary thievery.

Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang

In Alexandra Chang’s smart debut, Jing Jing, the story’s Chinese American narrator, moves from San Francisco to Ithaca, New York, for her (white) boyfriend’s graduate program. She grapples with race, privilege, and family ties as she transitions out of her old life as a writer at a tech publication, and into an unknown one that leaves her long hours to question her relationship, and all of the above—but also to write about it.

Allison Schaller, Associate Visuals Editor, Vanity Fair

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate

I didn’t think I was somebody partial to sweetness, and rawness to the point of crying about blue flowers on a dog’s face—but here I am recommending this book. It was quite honestly a delight to read. It’s a collection of beautiful, hilarious, genuine essays and really is meant for times when you feel heavy. Slate jumps between deeply considering a dead deer on her parents property, to transcribing her borderline surrealist dreams, to poignantly investigating heartache and the forms it takes in such a genuine way I couldn’t help but feel that it was written by a friend for me.

Calypso by David Sedaris

I’m a year or two late to this one, but thank God I saved it until now. This book isn’t Sedaris’s memoir, but all the stories are true (which is hard to believe through the outrageousness of many) he is so blatantly honest, whimsical, and sincere in his retelling that you can’t help but to fall completely in.

David Friend, Creative Development Editor, Vanity Fair

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

I am reading Barbara W. Tuchman’s richly detailed history of World War 1, The Guns of August, thinking that I might glean some wisdom from her chronicle of how misguided world leaders, woefully incompetent government and military planning, bogus assumptions, outdated technology, hubris, bellicosity, and the undertow of destiny and history led to a devastating calamity that changed the world forever.

Geoffrey Collins, Finance Manager, Vanity Fair

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

Her storytelling of the Talamasca and the Mayfair witches family history, from 17th-century France up to present-day New Orleans, is absolutely amazing and transplants me back in time to another place every time I read it.

Daniela Tijerina, Assistant to the Editor, Vanity Fair

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

During these uncertain times of panic-buying and misinformation wildfires I have found solace in revisiting Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Written by Yuval Noah Harari, an Oxford-educated historian, it’s educational but not sterile. And in this day and age it’s a testimony to the comforting power of facts and a lesson in the resilience of mankind. Plus, I always show up to the virtual dinner party with a new fun fact.

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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

When I’m not splitting my time between my kitchen and my bedroom you can find me in the English countryside where cloning has become a reality. Never Let Me Go, part science fiction, part romance novel, has been sitting on my nightstand for ages and has now come in handy as a great distraction from the real world. Without giving too much away, I’m now entangled in the love triangle of three British students Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. There’s a dystopian twist on their human experience that allows me just the right amount of quarantine escapism.

Erin Vanderhoof, Associate Editor, VF.com

A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor

In his Pulitzer Prize–winning 1986 novel, the Southern bard tells the story of a family dealing with the consequences of a lifetime of social distancing. Philip Carver is a Manhattanite in his late 40s, who is asked by his older sister to talk their father out of a potentially disastrous second marriage. This has long been one of my favorite books and I knew I was due for a rereading, but there’s nothing quite like a fictional family full of outsized, often loathsome personalities to remind you that you’re lucky to be with the one you have.

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

In his new book out this April, the author of Lost Girls, the harrowing account of five murdered women, tells a riveting story about 12 siblings, six of whom were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Kolker sensitively discusses how the illness affected both the siblings who had it and those who did not, and the impact of stigma in a moment where a new disease was only beginning to be understood. It certainly resonates with what’s going on right now, but it’s also a timeless look at how families care for one another in any circumstance.

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Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

Anderson Tepper, Copy Production Director, Vanity Fair

Fracture by Andrés Neuman

I’m deep into an early copy of Andrés Neuman’s new novel, Fracture (out May from FSG). Neuman is the Argentine author of Traveler of the Century and one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists, a wildly talented and curious writer whose books roam energetically around the world and across genres. His new book focuses on the 2011 earthquake in Japan and the resulting nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, while also weighing the psychic aftershocks of the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fracture is very much about how catastrophe and trauma ripple across the world—the book hopscotches from Tokyo to Madrid, Paris, Buenos Aires, and New York—and, in that sense, offers an eerie reflection of the global reach of our present pandemic.

The Housing Lark by Sam Selvon

What else? This seems as good a time as any to dip into lost or rediscovered classics and renew relationships with favorite authors of the past. Penguin Classics has recently released The Housing Lark, a previously unpublished minor gem by Sam Selvon, author of The Lonely Londoners and bard of West Indian life in postwar England.

Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay

I’m also keen to dip into Harlem Renaissance authors: Claude McKay’s Romance in Marseille, which has been getting rave reviews…

Hitting a Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston

...and Zora Neale Hurston’s Hitting a Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick.

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Hitting a Straight Lick With a Crooked Stick

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Lastly, preparing for the long haul, I’m ready to retackle the big, monstrous final work of Roberto Bolaño, 2666, published in an artful three-book box set more than a decade ago and has been sitting on my bookshelf, less than half-read, ever since. Bolaño, like Neuman, skirts across genres and registers, and this work promises to include everything—black humor, madness, literary intrigue, ravenous sex, apocalyptic visions of death and calamity. Bolaño, by the way, was an early champion of Neuman’s work, and his prophetic words ring true: “The literature of the 21st century will belong to Neuman and a few of his blood brothers.”

Anthony Breznican, Special Correspondent, VF.com

The Unwilling by Kelly Braffet

This is a novel about a young woman named Judah—a nobody from nowhere—who happens to be able to feel everything the son of a kingdom’s ruler feels. And vice versa. Highfall is a fairy tale-like world, but one with real darkness around the edges. Judah’s extraordinary power and connection to Gavin, the boy who would be king, opens her up to the corridors of power, while he is able to sense what life is like for someone like her, which is far more terrifying and uncertain. This idea of two people being able to feel each other’s sensations—both physically and emotionally—is brilliantly executed. The Unwilling is about sharing joy, and sensing fear and cruelty, and caring beyond ourselves. Kelly Braffet managed to make an adventure story about empathy.

Arimeta Diop, Editorial Assistant, Vanity Fair

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Perhaps my one bright spot in an otherwise uncertain and stress-inducing moment like this one is that I’ve finally found the time to return to this book. In its onset, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle follows a young married couple who is looking for their cat, but what flows out from that mundane initial tension is so much more heartbreaking, haunting, confounding, and invigorating than I could’ve imagined. In this work Murakami takes the familiar and makes it so irregular that it feels escapist—appropriate reading material for our current context

Mary Alice Miller, Associate Editor, Vanity Fair

The Past Through Tomorrow: Robert A. Heinlein’s Future History Stories by Robert A. Heinlein

As a birthday gift for a dear friend, I purchased a 1967 first edition copy of The Past Through Tomorrow: Robert A. Heinlein’s Future History Stories, a chronological compendium of the science-fiction writer’s 21 short stories, novellas, and novels. Since we’re quarantined, I couldn’t gift the book in person, so I’ve been reading the anthology story by story via FaceTime to its recipient.

(Editor’s Note: The Past Through Tomorrow is out of print—check for digital editions at your local library, search for old copies at your favorite used bookstore when this is all over, and in the meantime try Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.)

Attention: A Love Story by Casey Schwartz

For many in quarantine, our digital devices have become our only means of working, socializing, and staying informed. It’s exhausting. Casey Schwartz’s new book, out in April, is helping me reevaluate my relationship with screens at a moment when I’ve never been more dependent on them. Equal parts memoir and reported nonfiction, Attention chronicles the author’s lifelong obsession with humanity’s ability, or lack thereof, to focus. Closing the laptop, putting the phone in the other room, and curling up with this book has been the best part of my day.

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