In times of crisis, there’s some solace to be found in losing yourself in an engrossing book. To compile the ultimate quarantine reading list, we invited eight women writers to tell us about the titles they look to for reassurance. Among them is Emma Cline, the Plimpton Prize-winning author, who recommends an austere novel set in post-war Switzerland; New York Times-bestselling writer Elizabeth Acevedo, who seeks refuge in Nafissa Thompson-Spires’ short stories; and rising star Jasmin Kaur, who is rereading Trista Mateer’s immersive poetry. “It’s been a great source of joy and comfort while I’ve been self-isolating,” says Kaur. “I can’t recommend it enough.”

From moving memoirs to hilarious graphic novels, and visceral short stories to lyrical poetry, there’s plenty here to keep you occupied for the coming weeks and months.

Julia Phillips

The Brooklyn-based American writer is the author of Disappearing Earth (2019)

“During any troubling times, and especially at this moment, I recommend picking up Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob (2019). This graphic memoir was one of the best books published last year. It’s a blisteringly quick read, laugh-out-loud funny and honours the importance of everyday conversations with family and friends in a way that feels particularly resonant now as we aren’t able to see so many of our loved ones in real life. Reading this book of chats between Jacob and those close to her makes you feel seen, soothed and like you’re not alone anymore.”

Read more: The Best New Books To Curl Up With While You’re Under Quarantine

Olivia Laing

The British writer and critic is the author of The Lonely City (2016) and Crudo (2018). Her collected essays, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency, is set to be published late April 2020

“After Britain entered lockdown, I reread the final volume of Virginia Woolf’s diaries (1953). It’s weird to be comforted by a book that describes rationing and bombing raids and ends in suicide, but Woolf is so stoical and funny, even as she tumbles into depression. The natural world is sustaining, and so are small domestic rites, just as they are in our own alarmingly contracted times. ‘And now with some pleasure,’ she writes at the end, ‘I find that it’s seven; and must cook dinner. Haddock and sausage meat. I think it is true that one gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down.’”

Jasmin Kaur

The Punjabi-Sikh author, artist and public educator states that she lives on unceded Stó:lō territory (now known as British Columbia, Canada). When You Ask Me Where I'm Going (2019) is her debut poetry and prose collection

“Aphrodite Made Me Do It by Trista Mateer (2019) is, hands down, my favourite poetry collection of all time. This immersive title is written in Trista’s voice as well as that of the goddess Aphrodite. I feel a powerful, intimate resonance with so many poems in this collection, especially those exploring self-love, womanhood and femininity. I find myself returning to this collection, especially its stunning visual art, time and time again.”

Emma Cline

The Californian novelist is author of The Girls (2016). Her story collection, Daddy, is due to be published in September 2020

“The antidote to chaos, for me, can mean searching out mildness in my reading: books with low stakes, books with mild travails. But relief can also come from writing that is so seamless and skilled that I can surrender completely to the world of the book. Lately, that was Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy (1989). A slim, relentless novel set at a boarding school in Switzerland, the air of surreal claustrophobia was so consuming that it distracted me from my own claustrophobic circumstances.”

Maisy Card

Born in Jamaica and raised in New York, Card is the author of These Ghosts are Family (2020)

“It’s been hard to pull myself away from the TV, but when I’m trying to get my attention span back, I’ll read a story from Jamaica Kincaid’s collection, At the Bottom of the River (1983). The stories feel fragmented and some are told using a stream of consciousness style. I read Kincaid for the way she uses language — right now, I feel like I have no words left inside me. I love the way she uses repetition throughout these stories, like she is casting an incantation. I need that magic right now.”

Molly Dektar

The North Carolina-born and Brooklyn-based writer is the author of The Ash Family (2019)

“There’s a flatness to looking back at historical catastrophes. In this moment, I’m seeking books that restore dimension to this massive tragedy, and prop me up with understanding and perspective where I have none. First, I’m returning to the humane, patient, profound writing of Primo Levi, especially the three books of his terrifying experiences before, during and after the second world war: The Periodic Table (1975), Survival in Auschwitz (1988) and The Reawakening [also titled The Truce] (1963). Second, Mike Davis’s The Monster at our Door (2005), which gives me everything that the news cycle doesn’t: a sense of the interconnected forces and the history that set us up for what we’re experiencing.”

Elizabeth Acevedo

The Afro-Dominican writer is the author of The Poet X (2018) and With the Fire on High (2019). Her next book, Clap When You Land, is set to be published in May 2020

“In this surreal time, reading Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (2018) is one way I am safely grappling with the weird and wonderful. Thompson-Spires is a master at building characters in ways that celebrate and complicate their very real, very human desires. Each narrative conflict is so hyper-specific that it’s like entering a little world occupied by an innermost ache you may not have known you had. As my Covid-19-obsessed mind struggles to stay focused, Thompson-Spires’ short stories pack a fiction-relief wallop, while also being gentle with my attention span.”

Lang Leav

Born in a Thai refugee camp when her family were fleeing the Khmer Rouge regime, the novelist and poet spent her formative years in Sydney, Australia. She is the author of Love & Misadventure (2013), Sad Girls (2017) and Poemsia (2019)

“Just like we have our comfort foods, we have our comfort authors. We find them during our formative years and can’t help but fall in love. They become our lifelong go-to when things are tough. In my senior year at school, I studied the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro. Her writing demonstrated an intimacy with language that enthralled and inspired me. Her characters are painfully visceral. To me, they feel indistinguishable from reality. Short stories are Munro’s specialty, yet each one carries the resonance of an entire novel. My favourite is Runaway (2004) from her book of the same title. The last few lines are like punch after punch to the gut.”

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