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Jenny Davidson

American literary scholar and writer; professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, writing on 18th-century literature, etiquette and culture; Guggenheim Fellow from 2005 to 2006.

7 things

The DecameronBook Boccaccio

recommended

The Decameron captures the fact that the suspension of normal realities that happens in a tragic situation like a pandemic can, paradoxically, produce a special protected environment for storytelling and its appreciation.

Five Books interview: the Best Books to Read in Quarantine

2020-03-16·fivebooks.com ↗

A Journal of the Plague YearBook Daniel Defoe

recommended

So A Journal of the Plague Year is a historical novel, and its pretext is that this narrative is a live journal of the epidemic by somebody living through it.

Five Books interview: the Best Books to Read in Quarantine

2020-03-16·fivebooks.com ↗

The PlagueBook Albert Camus

recommended

Albert Camus’s The Plague probably remains the best-known novel on the topic of epidemic disease.

Five Books interview: the Best Books to Read in Quarantine

2020-03-16·fivebooks.com ↗

SeveranceBook Ling Ma

recommended

Severance deservedly got a lot of attention when it came out in 2018.

Five Books interview: the Best Books to Read in Quarantine

2020-03-16·fivebooks.com ↗

PersuasionBook Jane Austen

recommended

Persuasion is an unusually brilliant novel, just in terms of its style of narration.

Five Books interview: the Best Love Stories

2019-02-14·fivebooks.com ↗

A True NovelBook Minae Mizumura

recommended

The title on my list that really interestingly exemplifies this is A True Novel.

Five Books interview: the Best Love Stories

2019-02-14·fivebooks.com ↗

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