The Decameron, Volume II

In 1348, ten young nobles flee the Black Death ravaging Florence and retreat to a country villa, where they agree to tell each other stories to pass the time. What begins as a quarantine entertainment becomes one of literature's most audacious act of survival. Volume II opens with tales of transformation through love: a brutish young man rendered eloquent by desire, a woman who attempts suicide upon hearing her lover has died, only to discover him thriving in a distant land. But Boccaccio's range defies easy categorization. His stories move from slapstick comedy to genuine tragedy, from ribald erotica to spiritual devotion, often within the space of a single tale. These are people testing the boundaries of social convention, exploiting loopholes in fortune's plan, finding cunning ways to love whom they choose. Nearly seven centuries later, The Decameron remains astonishingly alive because it understands that even during catastrophe, humans need stories more than food. This is the novel's ancestor: wild, funny, occasionally obscene, and impossible to put down.