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What do you read when you feel despairing? Photograph: Mint Images/Getty Images/Mint Images RF
What do you read when you feel despairing? Photograph: Mint Images/Getty Images/Mint Images RF

Your coronavirus reading list: reader suggestions to bring joy in difficult times

From Terry Pratchett’s Discworld to Robert Macfarlane’s nature rambles, here are just some of your recommended reads for when things get tough – like a 14-day quarantine

The Wild Places, Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane writes lyrically and lovingly about the places (mainly in Britain) he walks through. He combines his sense of wonder with thorough knowledge of the places he journeys to, their history, previous written works by poets, authors, artists and explorers and others who have travelled and wondered along the same paths.

I’ve read and reread The Wild Places in Scotland, Tasmania and Perth Western Australia, but Landmarks is also wonderful. It explores the naming of features and the many lost words that described the landscape for inhabitants over generations, when accurate terms for landscape features were part of survival and are a rich and largely lost cultural treasure. Currently reading The Old Ways, with Underland and Mountains of the Mind waiting nearby. His writings make my heart sing. Rochsonsdottir

The Spy and the Traitor by Ben MacIntyre

An absolute ripper. A non-fiction thriller set in the 80’s: Thatcher, Putin and a cast of nefarious double agents, MI5 and the KGB. This story is so unbelievable that a fiction writer could never dream it up, it was a could-not-put-it-down scorcher, and you don’t find many of those.

WARNING: If you buy the book do not look at the collection of photos in the middle of the book until you have read it, they give the ending away. Patrick305

Daddy Long-Legs by Jean Webster

School children on a bus
1920s photograph of school children on a bus Photograph: Alamy

As a child, I was given my grandfather’s hardback copy of this book after his death. He was a taciturn, brooding man, often self-medicated against undiagnosed PTSD from his WWII experiences, so finding out that this sweetly funny, romantic epistolary novel from 1912 was a particular favourite of his was revelatory. I read it over and over until the cover eventually fell apart. JediMindTrick

Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch

A history of the civil rights movement and one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. Superbly written and telling a great story. And the biggest victories of the civil rights movement occur in this book so it ticks the uplifting box. Silklin

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Screenshot from His Dark Materials
Philip Pullman: an imagination equal to the greats. Photograph: Screen Grab/BBC/Bad Wolf/HBO

I love young adult fiction and also adore the His Dark Materials trilogy. Amazing books each one (the last is particularly good) and a fascinating world where humans have daemons, soul mates in animal form, and there is a war between heaven and earth. Philip Pullman has an imagination equal or superior to greats like JK Rowling, Tolkien and CS Lewis, and he writes beautifully. The trilogy is his masterpiece; the Book of Dust didn’t grab me in the same way. A joy to read with great characters and a fascinating universe that pits science against superstition. banditmcq

Ascendance of a Bookworm by Miya Kazuki

Fantasy lovers may enjoy Ascendance of a Bookworm, which I’m reading at the moment. It’s a translation of a Japanese light novel series. A young present-day Japanese woman dies and is reincarnated as a sickly 6-year-old peasant girl in a fantasy medieval world. Cheery stuff, hmm? She loves books, of which there are none. So she decides to “invent” them – paper, ink etc. In the process she starts upending the established social order. It’s all very young adult but it’s good fun. Ajostu

The Beloved Vagabond by William Locke

The life of a musician-philosopher as he wanders through rural turn of 20th century France, earning his living with his violin by day and debating philosophy over beer by night, a romantic proto-hippie idyll only disrupted when – sacre bleu! – our hero falls in love. Find it and read on. LoudonCleary

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Morla from the film adaptation of Neverending Story.
Morla from the film adaptation of Neverending Story. Photograph: film company handout

Forget the films, this is one of the most imaginative and dark rides I’ve been on! And full of the message of loving the person you truly are. UriahHeep1975

The Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett

Any Terry Pratchett novel, but particularly the ones involving the witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat and Tiffany Aching. The witches show care and concern for others in their society and a strong sense of integrity, something sadly lacking in most of our politicians and business leaders. indelibleink

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Mos Def and Martin Freeman in film adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Mos Def and Martin Freeman in film adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Couldn’t really think about a reading list for dark times that doesn’t include The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy series. I can’t think of any other books that have provided so many laughs over more decades. Dirk Gently was very good, but the Guide was close to perfect. CaligulaMcNutt

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

The only book that makes me laugh every time I go back and read it. There are dark sections along the way and also some beautiful and poignant passages. A masterpiece, supposedly fictional, but no one could possibly dream up this story without having lived some of it themselves. Patrick305

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