Stories from Quarantine | Shelf Care by Kimberly Prom

Friends! I am so excited to share that we have our first guest post! My sweet cousin Kim has graciously written a “What to Read” for our quarantine series and I’m so excited to share it with you! Kim and I have been trading notes about our favorite and recent reads as long as I can remember and her insight is not one to be missed. Take it away, Kim!

Shelf Care: What I’m reading during the Coronavirus pandemic

by Kimberly Prom

Being stranded at home is an excellent excuse to finally whittle down that To-Be-Read pile/shelf/mountain you’ve been hoarding. It’s also a great reason to support some important institutions that could really use some help right now: local independent bookstores.

With everyone staying home and many businesses deemed “non-essential” closing down, we need to do what we can to help out the local businesses we care about. Most local independent bookstores offer online ordering and shipping, and some even offer curbside pick-up. Check your local indie’s website to see what they offer and place your order, or order through indiebound.org or bookshop.org to support local independent bookstores.

It seems like a fair trade to me: they’re helping us survive isolation mentally, and we’re helping them survive financially. Win-Win!

With that in mind, here is what I’ve been reading recently, or plan to read soon:

Pandemic/Quarantine Books:

I like my reading like Anna Wintour likes her Met Gala guests dressed: on theme. Here are some excellent pandemic/plague/quarantine-related books:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- In the aftermath of an epidemic that wiped out most of the world’s population, follow a group of artists and performers as they travel around trying to keep their art alive. The story spans decades and continents as it shows that when the world falls apart, it can also come back together. If you like it, the author has a new book, The Glass Hotel.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
- Set amidst civil war and cholera outbreaks, this beautiful novel explores love, death, decay, and the idea of lovesickness as disease. It was also excerpted in this wedding ceremony conducted last week that went viral (in the online way, not the medical way). And if that isn’t enough Márquez for you, check out One Hundred Years of Solitude, another apt read for our current trying times.
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
- Fans of YA would enjoy this spectacular debut novel about a girls boarding school under quarantine. The story explores female friendships and sexuality while elements of climate horror and body horror abound in this haunting tale.
Severance by Ling Ma
- Candace Chen needs to keep commuting to work during a feverish pandemic – sound familiar? This apocalyptic satire mocks all the routines and rituals of daily life in the face of a collapsing society with deadpan wit, but also a heartfelt appreciation for the connections that help us survive.
The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
- A fascinating story set in London of the seventeenth century and the twenty-first century as it interweaves the tales of two women. The bubonic plague wreaks havoc on the life of a Jewish scribe and years later an academic unearths the story. It’s an enchanting, well-researched work of historical fiction that manages to be both sweeping and intimate.
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
- You may know him from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad or his recent bestseller The Nickel Boys, but Whitehead also wrote a novel about the aftermath of a global plague that is at once a chilling horror story and humorous literary masterpiece.
The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood
- If you like The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu or Alias Grace on Netflix, may I suggest checking out another work of speculative fiction from the brilliant mind of Margaret Atwood? The MaddAddam trilogy, comprised of Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam, chronicles society’s descent in the grips of a catastrophic plague, slowly unraveling and revealing the path that led the world there.
The Book of M by Peng Shepherd
- In this eerily magical book, those afflicted by a mysterious plague lose their shadows and then their memories. Read the story before a Lost executive producer brings it to the screen.
The Plague by Albert Camus
- A classic from a Nobel Prize-winning author, this gripping tale of horror, survival, and resilience is poignant and profoundly relevant. A popular read during our current times, you could join a global conversation.
The Stand by Stephen King
- A horror classic with a mutated strain of super-flu and all of humanity at stake. Plus, like most of King’s books it is incredibly long so it should at least help you pass the time. You can always stick it in the freezer if it gets too scary.
Inferno by Dan Brown
- You know when you are in the mood for some Hollywood action movie trash with ridiculous fight sequences, pseudoscientific explanations, and expensive planes/trains/automobiles? This is like that but for books about plagues. Don’t look too hard at the details or it will topple like a house of cards, but it sure is some fast-paced, high-stakes entertainment.

Other End-of-the-World Books

When the world feels like it’s crashing down around you, turn to some stories where it actually is:

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
- It’s the end of the world and at least in this book it’s funny. You might have caught the (rather good) series on Amazon, but you should also check out the thoroughly amusing book that will make you both giggle and contemplate the human soul.
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
- Basically a grown-up Scooby Doo with a gang of friends trying to solve a mystery, but this time on an apocalyptic scale. They even have a dog, too.
The Earthseed Series by Octavia E. Butler
- Including Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, this series from science fiction legend Octavia E. Butler follows a young woman as she embarks on a fateful journey in a world that has descended into madness and anarchy.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- The last survivors of the human race journey across the stars looking for a new home. This long book and it’s equally-long sequel Children of Ruin, should keep you occupied for a while.

Books about Isolation and Loneliness

Isolation and social distancing are challenges to even the most introverted of us. Here are some books that look at loneliness and isolation:

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh
- Struggling with self isolation? The main character of this book takes it to a whole other level when she tries, with some pharmacological aid, to sleep for an entire year.
Exit West by Moshin Hamid
- A novel about separation and distance caused not by a pandemic, but by a combination of political upheaval and magical realism. An interesting tale about how it feels to leave behind the ones you love and the life you once led. Read the book before it’s adapted by President Obama’s Higher Ground Productions.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
- After the Russian Revolution, an aristocrat is sentenced to house arrest in a hotel attic. This historical fiction novel explores his new relationship to the world he can only view from within the hotel’s walls. Read it as you gaze longingly out your own windows.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
- An epistolary novel about an island in the English Channel that was completely cut off from the rest of the world for most of WWII. The romance will make you swoon, the historical details of isolation will make you grateful for your internet connection – especially when you stream the film adaptation on Netflix.
The Martian by Andy Weir
- Trying to survive on nonperishable pantry goods or starting some new DIY projects while you’re trapped at home? Get some perspective and enjoyment from this tale of an astronaut stranded alone on Mars who needs to use his engineering skills to survive. Then watch Matt Damon do it.

Long-Ass Books You Finally Have Time For

You might as well make the most of this time trapped inside and check some of these tomes of your to-do list:

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- An epic tale of adventure and revenge sure to keep you enthralled for hours, or days. Other lengthy Dumas reads: The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask.
The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel
- Including Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror and the Light, this series is both historical fiction and political drama. Plus, it made President Obama’s reading list.
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
- If you’ve only seen the opera, you missed out on a few hundred more pages of plot. This novel’s meditations on incarceration, class, economic justice are surely relevant to our current moment. If that’s not to your taste, check out Hugo’s just-as-long The Hunchback of Notre Dame (fair warning – the gargoyles don’t sing in this one).
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- A beautiful, depressing tale of love, jealousy, and agriculture-as-metaphor. You can also take a crack at Tolstoy’s War and Peace when you’re at it.
Middlemarch by George Eliot
- A classic about marriage, work, patriarchy, and small acts of kindness.
- The podcast Literary Disco has chosen this tome to tackle while we’ve got the time – follow long with their amusing twitter updates about the book while waiting for their next episode
The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon
- With eight lengthy books in the series and two more on the way, plus various spin-offs and novellas, this series will keep you captivated and occupied for a long time. The series combines romance, adventure, science fiction, fantasy, and more in the epic story of time-travelling Claire, heroic Jamie, and various characters they meet along the way. And when you’re done you can binge the series on Starz.