Quarantine Reads: All the Books You Can't Put Down

“Best book I have read in a long time.” —Marsha Rooney Mueggenberg

“I stayed up until 5am to finish it.” —Jennifer Wilson Bowers

“I loved everything about this book.” —Gina Vadala

“Just a beautiful story, beautifully written.” —Melissa Burnett Lee

“Magnificent!” —Ellen Lasley Murphy

“My dad handed it to me at 9pm saying ‘I think you’ll like this.’ I put it down 400 pages in only because it was now 4:30 am, and my eyes were glazing over and skipping paragraphs. I finished it the next day because I couldn’t do anything else until I’d gotten the resolution”. —archergwen

“Many years ago when I first started working, I didn't have a car and took the underground to work. For a few weeks, I chose One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez to read on the way there, and on the way back.

The last couple of chapters were so captivating, I started reading them one morning on the tube to work, but I just couldn't close the book when I got to my station, so I carried on reading while walking in the station, on the street, in the elevator, in the corridors, then sat down at my desk and carried on reading for the next hour until I had finished the book. I knew I was possessed by the book, but still couldn't let go.” —nationcrafting

Related: What to Read Next, Based On Your Favorite Books and Authors 

“I started it on a flight to my in-laws over xmas, and basically didn't interact with any of them the whole time until finishing it.” —Gohan_sebastian_bach

“I couldn't put it down. When the show came out, I was ready to be disappointed but it's actually really good!” —wwjdforaklondikebar

Both a fantastical adventure tale of survival (the narrator winds up stuck on a boat with a tiger named Richard Parker) and a beautiful philosophical novel, Life of Pi might be the most enchanting book on this list. Ironically, at one point in his journey, Pi says "My greatest wish—other than salvation—was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." We know the feeling.

Related: Which Quarantined Book Character Are You Most Like? 

Both a Pulitzer Prize winner and an Oprah’s Book Club pick, this story about a Chinese peasant farmer and his family in the early twentieth century is just as gripping and relevant today as it was in 1931.

If you’re nervous about Coronavirus, this book might hit a little close to home. Saramago has imagined a world where everyone has caught a disease that makes them go blind—except for one woman.

Related: 10 José Saramago Books to Help You See the World From New Perspectives 

This cross-generational saga has one of the best first lines in literature: “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” And the book only gets more compelling from there.

If you’ve only seen the (admittedly-great) film adaptation of this book, you owe it to yourself to read Solomon Northup’s true story in his own words.