20 Books That Take Place in One Day

by Ore Agbaje-Williams

Long-standing tensions between a husband, his wife, and her best friend finally come to a breaking point in this sharp domestic comedy of manners, told brilliantly over the course of one day.

by Ian McEwan

A successful, happily married neurosurgeon, Henry Perowne is drawn into a confrontation with Baxter, a small-time thug, following a minor motor vehicle accident, an encounter that has savage consequences.

by Maria Semple

Initiating small changes that she hopes will reverse negative patterns in her life, Eleanor Flood is derailed by her family members' unethical practices before an encounter with a former colleague triggers dramas that reveal a buried secret.

by Saleem Haddad

After his grandmother discovers him in bed with another man, Rasa roams the citys slums and prisons, the lavish weddings of the country's elite, and the bars where outcasts and intellectuals drink.

by Allison Winn Scotch

Two exes wake up together with wedding bands on their fingers—and no idea how they got there. They have just one New Year’s Eve at the end of 1999 to figure it out.

by Nicholson Baker

The seemingly mundane events that occur to a young clerk on his lunch hour are magnified in his mind into complex statements on the modern condition.

by Madeleine Ryan

Attending a party under the full moon in Melbourne, a young woman on the autism spectrum makes magical, extraordinary connections with the people she encounters, including a man with whom she pursues a rare intimate encounter.

by Jon McGregor

Journeys into the private lives of the residents of a small urban street in England as it chronicles the events that transpire over the course of a single day, as the peace and tranquility of an ordinary day are shattered by a tragic accident at the end of the day.

by Xinwu Liu; translated by Jeremy Tiang

On a December morning in 1982, the courtyard of a Beijing siheyuan—a lively quadrangle of homes—begins to stir. Auntie Xue’s son Jiyue is getting married today, and she is determined to make the day a triumph. With a cross-generational multitude of guests, from anxious family members to a fretful bridal party—not to mention exasperating friends, interfering neighbors, and wedding crashers—what will the day ahead bring?

by Steven Wright

Harold documents the meandering, surreal, often hilarious, and always thought-provoking stream-of-consciousness ruminations of the title character during a single day in class.
 

by Pedro Mairal; translated by Jennifer Croft

Trapped in a loveless marriage, Lucas Pereyra, an unemployed writer in his forties, finds the one thing that keeps him going is the woman from Uruguay whom he met at a conference and has been longing to see ever since.

by Kathleen Rooney

Embarking on a walk across the unsafe landscape of Manhattan on New Year's Eve in 1984, 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish recalls her long and eventful life, which included a brief reign as the highest-paid advertising woman in America, whose career was cut short by marriage and loss.

by Christopher Isherwood

After the sudden death of his longtime lover, George must adjust to life on his own as a professor in Southern California in the early 1960s. During the course of an ordinary day, George is haunted by memories as he seeks connections with the world around him.

by Ellen Cooney

A young interfaith chaplain is joined on her hospital rounds one night by an unusual companion: a rough-and-ready dog who may or may not be a ghost. As she tends to the souls of her patients, young and old, living last moments or navigating fundamentally altered lives, their stories provide unexpected healing for her own heartbreak.

by Don DeLillo

A billionaire asset manager emerges from his penthouse triplex and settles into his lavishly customized white stretch limousine. On this day he is a man with two missions: to pursue a cataclysmic bet against the yen and to get a haircut across town. His journey is a funny, fast-moving contemporary odyssey.

by Zalika Reid-Benta

When the Jamaican water deity, River Mumma, tells her she has 24 hours to find her missing comb, Alicia, forming a strange connection with her two co-workers who help her fight off malevolent spirits, is led on a journey through time to discover herself and what the river carries.

by Aravind Adiga

A young illegal immigrant in Sydney, Australia is forced to choose between risking deportation and reporting the murder of a female client. 

by Lee Durkee

A darkly comic novel about a day in the life of an exhausted, middle-aged hackie about to lose his job to Uber, his girlfriend to lethargy, and his ability to stand upright to chronic back spasms.

by Samantha Harvey

Snapshots from one day in the lives of six women and men—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—traveling through space on the last space station mission.

by Alison B. Hart

Told over the course of a single day and from three fierce perspectives, this novel of female power and ambition follows Zanne, a personal assistant to Hollywood royalty, who must decide if the sacrifices she made for the job are worth the moral price she has to pay.