Fourteen Days

This is an original and memorable read, described in the Forward as "a celebration of the power of stories." Think of a story as being a mechanism that brings people together, a shared and communal experience. Fourteen Days was conceived of as a homage to the COVID-19 pandemic, a sui generis event that brought strangers together in unanticipated ways (think of the communal banging of pots and pans) and saw the forging of novel, often shared experiences. Storytelling, it is asserted, can be a collective project. Edited by Margaret Atwood, this work is written by 36 different authors of all ages and genres - from John Grisham to Dave Eggers via Celeste Ng. Part of the joy of reading Fourteen Days is to guess who wrote which part - harder than one might imagine, with the reveal only coming at the end. At the heart of the plot is the meeting - every evening, on the rooftop - of a New York City tenement block's inhabitants. Hitherto strangers, they find meaning during lockdown through sharing stories, much like in The Decameron or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Inevitably grudges and alliances form, and equally, some stories are stronger than others. As the work progresses, it takes on an increasingly surreal nature - with closure after a fashion at the end. Read this not only for poignancy - a reminder of the strange spring of 2020 - but also as a celebration of writing.

By Margaret Atwood