Must-Read
Best Pandemic-Era Novels
Some of the strongest pandemic-era novels were written before any of us had the word for what was coming. Others were written across the lockdown years that followed. These six are the books our editors recommend when readers want fiction that takes the disorientation of the 2020-and-after years as the actual literary subject.
6 books on this list.
Station Elevenby Emily St. John Mandel
5.0“Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 2014 review. A roving theatre troupe performs Shakespeare in the Great Lakes twenty years after a pandemic. National Book Award finalist 2014 and the canonical contemporary post-apocalyptic literary novel.”
Tom Lakeby Ann Patchett
5.0“Tom Lake by Ann Patchett 2023 review. A mother tells her three adult daughters about her brief romance with a future movie star while picking cherries during the COVID lockdown. Patchett's late-career literary commercial novel and the most-discussed Meryl Streep audiobook narration of 2023.”
Klara and the Sunby Kazuo Ishiguro
5.0“Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 2021 review. Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches the children passing by the storefront and waits to be chosen. Late-career Ishiguro at his most patient and most strange.”
The Anxious Generationby Jonathan Haidt
4.0“The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt 2024 review. The smartphone-and-social-media-driven youth mental-health crisis and a four-point reform proposal. The most-cited contemporary book on adolescent psychology.”
Prophet Songby Paul Lynch
5.0“Prophet Song by Paul Lynch 2023 review. A Dublin mother of four watches Ireland slide into an emergency-power dictatorship. Booker Prize 2023 and one of the canonical contemporary dystopian literary novels.”
The Midnight Libraryby Matt Haig
4.0“A gorgeous concept executed with warmth and wit. The Midnight Library will make you think differently about the choices you have made - and the ones still ahead.”