It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of a lot of time to kill, must be in want of a binge. Most of us are entering into our second month of Coronavirus lockdown this week. We’ve already blown through Tiger King, cried our eyes out during the latest episode of Outlander, caught up on all our Bravo shows, and we’re facing a big “what now?”

Never fear, all you cool cats and kittens! There remains an infinite amount of bingeing to be had, with as many bizarre mysteries and questionable characters as Joe Exotic’s zoo. I’ve rounded up four of my favorite prolific writers. Their writing is as masterful as their published collections are extensive.

May your sweatpants be roomy and your imagination kept alive.

Happy binge-reading, friends.

*NOTE: I am a proud affiliate of these books, and I do receive a small commission from each sale.

Tom Robbins

I’ve already written extensively about my long-standing relationship with Tom Robbins novels, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still carry on.

I found Tom Robbins at a moment in my life when I was lonely and broke; a very green, yet very disillusioned young dreamer, sharing a too-small apartment with a furniture hoarder and a Pisces, and wanting desperately to believe that my greatest, most inspired years were still ahead of me. I’d spend my entire twenties learning the hard way that all of life is, indeed, like a Tom Robbins novel:

preposterous and profound.

Where to Start:

Jeanette Winterson

Truth be told, I don’t know how to write about Jeanette Winterson. There is a line in Jane Austen’s Emma, “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” That is how I feel about Winterson’s writing. I’ve travelled deeply personal and intimate roads within the pages of her novels. Her stories are masterfully woven with poetry and philosophy, shocking textures. They read simultaneously as a day-dream and a sharp blade.

I’m flipping through my well-worn copy of Written on the Body. It’s heavily inked up with my underlines and notes-to-self in the margins. Nearly every page is touched in some way, as I have been touched in some way by nearly every page. I stop at a paragraph particularly marked up. Ah, yes. I remember this passage. I remember the first time I read it. I remember the sensation of having read a bit of scripture, something sacred and irrefutably true:

“No-one can legislate love; it cannot be given orders or cajoled into service. Love belongs to itself, deaf to pleading and unmoved by violence. Love is not something you can negotiate. Love is the one thing stronger than desire and the only proper reason to resist temptation.”

I have no better words to represent Jeanette Winterson’s writing than she could provide, herself. So I’ll have done with it, and keep moving.

Where to Start:

Charles Bukowski

A friend recently asked me just what it is that keeps me coming back to Bukowski. “He’s quite pessimistic, no?” she asked.

I get it. As a writer, he’s crude and rough around the edges. As a man, he’s an unforgivable abuser of alcohol and women.

And still, I have been more inspired, more heartened, more entertained, more challenged by Bukowski’s novels and poetry than by even the purest of gurus and spiritual teachers. I’ve never felt that he was pessimistic, so much as realistic. He had a shit life. The cards were stacked against him. But he was thrown a lifeline, writing, and he clung to that lifeline for all it was worth. Did the lifeline save him? It’s hard to say. From what we can tell, he never lived a healed or happy life. But it kept him alive enough to write lifelines of his own to toss out to the misfits, the dreamers, the weirdos, the wanderers.

Bukowski turns passion and pain into poetry and story—perhaps the most optimistic endeavor a creator can take on. If you’re in need of a lifeline, if you want to feel less alone in your aloneness, grab hold.

Where to Start:

Jane Austen

One of the most beloved writers of all time certainly doesn’t need any promotion from me. Still, I encounter so many readers who have never given Jane Austen a chance. Some are under the impression that her novels are frivolous romances. Others are uninterested in reading classics. More often than not, the general assumption seems to be that her stories are old-fashioned and irrelevant, especially in times like these.

I’d like to argue that Jane Austen has never been more relevant or more necessary. Please believe me when I shout it from the rooftops: Jane Austen is timeless! Her stories are human. Her characters are complex, quirky, imperfectly perfect. Her novels will have you laughing, crying, and contemplating human behavior in a rare and magical way.

Emma was the first novel I read under this Coronavirus lockdown. I hadn’t read it since high school, but I know the story inside and out. Like all of her novels, it’s been retold so often, and under so many disguises that I doubt there is a grown American who isn’t familiar with the story, whether or not they’re aware of it’s origin—anyone remember Clueless? Still, I was enchanted from the beginning, just as I had been so many years ago. Something that can be counted on in any Jane Austen novel is a happy ending, and when you’re facing uncertain outcomes, as we are now during this global pandemic, nothing feels better than immersing yourself in a world where goodness prevails, and love, politely and joyfully, wins.

Where to Start: