Six of the best books set in & around the theatrical world

Joanna Quinn was born in London and grew up in Dorset, in the southwest of England, where her debut novel, The Whalebone Theatre, is set.

She has worked in journalism and the charity sector. She is also a short story writer, published by The White Review and Comma Press, among others.

Quinn lives in a village near the sea in Dorset.

At CrimeReads she tagged six of the best books set in and around the theatrical world, including:

Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel

Mandel’s justly praised novel is one of my favourites of recent years. Set before and after a devastating pandemic, it begins with a production of King Lear. The book asks: what happens when everything we know and rely on is taken away? Who are we when our needs are reduced to only survival? Do we turn to violence or religion? Community or isolation? The different characters in this book offer different answers, but the most compelling are those who form part of The Traveling Symphony – a tiny theatre troupe travelling in horse-drawn vehicles (there’s no petrol on the far side of societal collapse) visiting isolated pockets of survivors and performing Shakespeare (“what was best about the world”).

Read about another entry on the list.

Station Eleven is among Carolyn Quimby's 38 best dystopian novels, Tara Sonin's seven books for fans of Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, Maggie Stiefvater's five fantasy books about artists & the magic of creativity, Mark Skinner's five top literary dystopias, Claudia Gray's five essential books about plagues and pandemics, K Chess's five top fictional books inside of real books, Rebecca Kauffman's ten top musical novels, Nathan Englander’s ten favorite books, M.L. Rio’s five top novels inspired by Shakespeare, Anne Corlett's five top books with different takes on the apocalypse, Christopher Priest’s five top sci-fi books that make use of music, and Anne Charnock's five favorite books with fictitious works of art.

--Marshal Zeringue