The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

This book is based in London and started in a hospital where a biologist, Bill Meson is admitted due to being blinded by the plant he studied. While there, an unusual meteor shower begins and continues all night; and with his eyes bandaged, he feels he's the only one not invited to the party to see it. However, anyone and everyone else does stay up and watches. The next day, when he can see, he finds that everyone else is blind.
Over the next few days, Bill wanders the streets of London not really knowing what to do and finds a woman who he helps from being turned into a slave for a blinded man. However, after he helps her, he leaves the city for the country and finds a well-established sighted group that never saw the meteor shower. For his own reasons, Bill finds this particular group ruthless, mean and not what he was looking for and he begins searching for the woman he helped in London; and once they find each other again, they form an unusual relationship where she is very liberated and helps make decisions in their lives. Bill and the woman decide to find a way to destroy the Triffids.
This book is well worth a read - even though it was written in 1951 - and I recommend it to anyone who loves sci-fi and loves a classic.

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was the son of a barrister. After trying a number of careers, including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, he started writing short stories in 1925.