10 Essential Authors for Quarantine time

03. April 2020. 13:10

Let’s start with some classic literature.

1. Jane Austen is one of my favourite writers. She is funny, witty, intelligent and there is always a lovely romantic story in each of her books. No, her novels are not only for romantic women! This young lady had a special kind of witty and sharp humour, her male characters are not exactly those types from the Hollywoodian romantic films, and it all comes alive in her books. Pride and Prejudice is the most famous one of her works, you should start with this.

2. The three Bronte-sisters are also really famous in English literature: Charlotte, Emily and Anne were well-educated women living a rather lonely life in the countryside, still they have passion, intelligence and wit in their novels. They represent a much darker shade of the female literature than Jane Austen and they used history as a background in their works. Let Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights be the first you choose from the sisters.

3. Sue Townsend will probably never belong to the classic British literature but people like me, who were kids or teenies in the 1980s, still adore her extremely funny diaries about the shy, poetry-loving English boy, Adrian Mole who loves Princess Diana and goes crazy when Pandora comes along. Do you wonder how a woman could write the diary of a boy? Try The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Ages 13 ¾ first and you won’t stop laughing.

4. Another children literature classic is Lassie come home from the British-American writer, Eric Knight. The sweet story of a collie (Scottish shepherd dog), looking for her way back home, through a lot of adventures and dangerous situations, warms up the heart of all the people from the young to the old. (This Above All is another great book from Mr Knight, but it is a war novel from the period of the Second World War.)

5. Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn is rather for male readers because of the topic and the language, however daring girls could also give him a chance because he is worth it. The main character, Lionel Essrog is a detective who suffers from the Tourette syndrome and while he is making his own exciting investigation, the reader could observe the lives of different people in the New York society.

After some lightness, let’s read something really serious.

6. George Orwell is always a great starting point if we want to read some intellectual literature from a bright mind. His novel 1984 is a classic dystopian fiction – an absolute must. Animal Farm is another amazing book – beware: this is not a lovely tale for children. Orwell saw the real faces and the real dangers of the society while living in the first half of the 20th century, facing world wars and Communism.

7. The Japanese Yukio Mishima is another example when reading is not a simple act, when sitting with a book in your lap is strongly accompanied by thinking and feeling. He wrote lots of novels and plays, unfortunately a large amount of them have never been translated into English, but you can find Confessions of a Mask, The Golden Pavilion or The Sound of Waves. He is not easy to read but he is really worth it because his passion, intelligence and bitterness shine through the pages.

8. Even though the story of the novel plays in Japan, the author of Memoirs of a Geisha is not Japanese – Arthur Golden comes from the USA but he worked with a Japanese woman, an ex-geisha, Mineka Iwasaki, during writing his wonderful novel. It describes how a little village girl could become a successful geisha and how she lived in the 1930s and 1940s, showing the secret life and education of a geisha and the world of the entertainment districts of Kyoto.

9. If you like reading historical novels, and you are interested in the British history, especially in the story of the famous VIII Henry, you must not avoid Philippa Gregory. Her most popular books present King Henry and his court, both the real historical events and the real (or less real) stories of his life, his family members, his many lovers and of course his six wives. The Other Boleyn Girl is a must.  

10. Last but not least, we must mention the Polish author, Henryk Sienkiewicz, who won the Nobel Prize for literature. He wrote historical and non-fiction novels as well, dealing with contemporary and ancient history. His main work, Quo vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero (Quo Vadis is the short form which is more known) combines the history of the Roman empire and early Christianism and a passionate love story in an amazing way during the era of the Roman emperor Nero.

(written by Henriett Tóth)