Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Books set during covid

65 replies

Wildchild60s · 02/12/2025 09:50

I read a lot of contemporary fiction, nothing especially highbrow. In two recent novels there was passing reference made to covid as a time in the characters' recent past. In one the character had taken up baking as a new hobby during lockdown. In another the character (who was one of the murder victims) had become increasingly isolated during lockdown.
This set me off wondering if anyone has come across novels set right in the middle of the pandemic, where all the restrictions we all lived under were an essential part of the plot, having such a huge impact on people's personal and professional lives?

OP posts:
Runnersandtoms · 08/12/2025 08:20

Also The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier is a novel that starts during the days of the Plague and goes through history right up to Covid. Quite interesting to see the similarities about what happened with enforced quarantine etc.

Runnersandtoms · 08/12/2025 08:17

Jodi Picoult Wish you were here was quite interesting, set during the early Covid days. Funny though how quickly you forget or see things differently after the event compared to back then.

Arran2024 · 08/12/2025 08:13

Wolfiefan · 07/12/2025 22:46

Came on here to recommend Night Swimmers and see someone else got there first. Stunning book.

That was me. I loved, loved that book.

BlueFairyBugsBooks · 07/12/2025 22:50

Maybe It's About Time by Neil Boss. It made me sob like a baby though so be warned.

Wolfiefan · 07/12/2025 22:46

Came on here to recommend Night Swimmers and see someone else got there first. Stunning book.

splendidpickle · 07/12/2025 22:38

Two metres from you by Heidi Stephens. It's her debut novel and it shows, but it's still a lovely book, set completely during lockdown.

PickledOnionOverdose · 07/12/2025 22:26

Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel, edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston, is a unique novel where 36 different authors each wrote a chapter about tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building who gather on the rooftop during the first two weeks of lockdown to tell stories.

Redcase · 02/12/2025 21:24

The wonderful Jodi Picoult’s Wish You Were Here. It’s set in a remote island and New York so very interesting to see those different experiences

Blackcountryexile · 02/12/2025 21:16

The Looked Room,one of the Ruth Galloway mysteries, by Elly Griffiths is set in Spring 2020.

Sheeppig · 02/12/2025 14:08

Arran2024 · 02/12/2025 12:30

Night Swimmers by Roisin Maguire. One of the best books I read this year.

How would I miss that one, one of my favourite reads last year. I'd actually forgotten it was set during Lockdown!
I'm also going to suggest Claire Fuller's The Memory of Animals. I'm not sure if it is Covid exactly but it's certainly about a major pandemic seen from the point of view of someone who is in isolation on a clinic having been part of a drug test. It's a very claustrophobic dystopia novel.

MadisonAvenue · 02/12/2025 14:01

Dressered · 02/12/2025 13:36

Bournville by Jonathan Coe

That was going to be my suggestion too.
I really enjoyed it.

JaneJeffer · 02/12/2025 13:38

tobee · 02/12/2025 13:26

Wasn't there some weird romance book about someone having relations with the virus itself? I presume it was meant to be deliberate satire.

PS I write "relations" as I can't remember if it was a romance or erotica! 😆

🤯😂

Dressered · 02/12/2025 13:36

Bournville by Jonathan Coe

tobee · 02/12/2025 13:30

Oh my god! There were 5 volumes! The author was making the most of the opportunity!

tobee · 02/12/2025 13:28

Found it! It wasn't some mad lockdown fever dream of mine!



tobee · 02/12/2025 13:26

Wasn't there some weird romance book about someone having relations with the virus itself? I presume it was meant to be deliberate satire.

PS I write "relations" as I can't remember if it was a romance or erotica! 😆

bagsofbats · 02/12/2025 13:07

Elizabeth Smout, Lucy by the Sea - the character is having a fair old winge from a point of privilege, its only a short book but I may not make it all the way through ...

Storynanny1 · 02/12/2025 12:34

cestlavielife · 02/12/2025 12:22

Jodi picoult wish you were here

that was an amazing book, I didn’t guess the big twist at all

Latenightreader · 02/12/2025 12:33

One of Catherine Fox's Lindchester books (maybe the 5th) is set during covid (each covers a year in a cathedral close and associated families). You do really need to read them from the start though.

Benvenuto · 02/12/2025 12:32

The second half of Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld is set in lockdown & it does drive the plot.

Arran2024 · 02/12/2025 12:30

Night Swimmers by Roisin Maguire. One of the best books I read this year.

cestlavielife · 02/12/2025 12:25

Day by michael cunngham
And a few more

The Best Books that Utilize COVID in the Plot - Jeanne Blasberg share.google/hvjDiQESB3Wfi3eCd

cestlavielife · 02/12/2025 12:22

Jodi picoult wish you were here

Imicola · 02/12/2025 12:21

Dream count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie covers a long time period, but quite a bit is set during lockdowns. Not really central to the plot though. I enjoyed it, but at the beginning i was disappointed that it started during lockdown! Might not have picked it if I had known.

Swipe left for the next trending thread