Pan­demic Read­ings Con­sid­ered

by Daniel

As we all hun­ker down in quar­an­tine from the global spread of SARS-CoV‑2 and as­so­ci­ated COVID19, some may have ex­tra time avail­able, per­haps to pick up a good book. We there­fore thought we'd help out by of­fer­ing a list of sug­gested pan­demic-re­lated read­ings. To start off, fif­teen sug­gested non-fic­tion ti­tles to ac­com­pany the lat­est news you might be get­ting through sources like This Week in Vi­rol­ogy. To fol­low, twenty sug­gested nov­els that fea­ture pan­demic out­break in one form or an­other. I'm sure that I've missed a few that read­ers might know of as well, so let us know if you do.

The Tri­umph of Death by P. Bruegel the El­der. Source

Be­fore that, a note for those who still re­main busy amid es­sen­tial ser­vices or main­tain­ing fam­ily life, and don't have the time to com­mit to a full book. There are count­less short sto­ries out there fea­tur­ing a pan­demic as a plot point, but one short story in par­tic­u­lar comes to my mind that I'd rec­om­mend. That is "The Last Flight of Doc­tor Ain" by James Tip­tree, Jr. For those who aren't fa­mil­iar with Tip­tree, it is the pseu­do­nym of Al­ice B. Shel­don, who in ad­di­tion to be­ing a writer, worked at one time or an­other as a re­search psy­chol­o­gist, World War II in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cer, CIA agent, and chicken farmer. She sadly killed her­self in 1987, but left be­hind a vol­ume of re­spected spec­u­la­tive fic­tion, in­clud­ing the above story of vi­ral pathogen re­lease.

On to the lists, each pre­sented in al­pha­bet­i­cal or­der by au­thor:

Non-Fic­tion

• The Great In­fluenza: The Story of the Dead­liest Pan­demic in His­tory by John M. Barry (Pen­guin Books) – One of two well-known works (see Ko­lata be­low) on this list that present the bi­ol­ogy of in­fluenza and the his­tory of the 1918 pan­demic for a gen­eral au­di­ence. I first read this back in grad­u­ate school while TAing mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy and still use it as a source for class this day. 

• Deadly Com­pan­ions: How Mi­crobes Shaped Our His­tory by Dorothy H. Craw­ford (Ox­ford Uni­ver­sity Press) – I read and en­joyed the author's book Virus Hunt: The Search for the Ori­gin of HIV, so I've also picked up a copy of her older gen­eral work cov­er­ing the im­pact of in­fec­tion on hu­man his­tory up through the SARS out­break of the early 2000s. 

• Pan­demics by Pe­ter C. Do­herty (Ox­ford Uni­ver­sity Press) – Part of OUP's "What Every­one Needs to Know" se­ries, No­bel Prize win­ning im­mu­nol­o­gist and vet­eri­nary sur­geon Do­herty writes a com­pre­hen­sive and suc­cinct re­view of the topic: what pan­demics are, which have oc­curred, which may likely oc­cur, and what gov­ern­ments and in­di­vid­u­als are doing/can do to com­bat them.

• En­vi­sion­ing Dis­ease, Gen­der and War: Women's Nar­ra­tives of the 1918 In­fluenza Pan­demic by Jane E. Fisher (Pal­grave Macmil­lan) – One of the more spe­cialty ti­tles on this list, Fisher's book is unique in of­fer­ing so­ci­o­log­i­cal per­spec­tives on the 1918 in­fluenza pan­demic with a fo­cus on the of­ten-ig­nored role that women played dur­ing this pe­riod. Fisher is fac­ulty in the Eng­lish De­part­ment and Women's & Gen­der Stud­ies pro­gram at Can­i­sius Col­lege, where I teach.

• The Com­ing Plague: Newly Emerg­ing Dis­eases in a World Out of Bal­ance by Lau­rie Gar­rett (Pen­guin Books) – Though pub­lished in 1995, this ti­tle makes it clear that the ar­rival of COVID19 was cer­tainly not some­thing that 'couldn't be pre­dicted'. At least not in the gen­eral sense.

• China Syn­drome: The True Story of the 21st Century's First Great Epi­demic by Karl Taro Green­feld (Harper) – This book de­tails the his­tory of the first SARS out­break of 2002 – 2004, some­thing given greater poignancy and rel­e­vance to­day. I haven't had the chance to read it, but plan to for mix­ing with cur­rent events when teach­ing about coro­n­aviruses in class in the fu­ture. 

• The Great Mor­tal­ity: An In­ti­mate His­tory of the Black Death, the Most Dev­as­tat­ing Plague of All Time by John Kelly (Harper Peren­nial) – A his­tory of the events that gave us the term 'plague' and 'pesti­lence', the spread of Yersinia pestis in­fec­tion through­out Eura­sia and North Africa in the mid-14th Cen­tury. 

• Flu: The Story of the Great In­fluenza Pan­demic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It by Gina Ko­lata (Far­rar, Straus and Giroux) – The sec­ond of two well-known works (see Barry above) on this list that present the bi­ol­ogy of in­fluenza and the his­tory of the 1918 pan­demic for a gen­eral au­di­ence. Ko­lata is an out­stand­ing sci­ence writer and I'd en­cour­age you to seek out her other ti­tles as well. 

• Dead­liest En­emy: Our War Against Killer Germs by Michael T. Os­ter­holm & Mark Ol­shaker (Lit­tle, Brown Spark) – Not one I had heard of be­fore re­search­ing this post, but the publisher's de­scrip­tion and good re­views of the book have me in­trigued: "Draw­ing on the lat­est med­ical sci­ence, case stud­ies, pol­icy re­search, and hard-earned epi­demi­o­log­i­cal lessons, [this book] ex­plores the re­sources and pro­grams we need to de­velop if we are to keep our­selves safe from in­fec­tious dis­ease."

• The Hot Zone: The Ter­ri­fy­ing True Story of the Ori­gins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Pre­ston (An­chor Books) – I hes­i­tate to in­clude this here as a 'rec­om­men­da­tion', and I even con­sid­ered putting it in 'fic­tion'. But this book is so pop­u­lar and well-known that it couldn't be left off. But, caveat emp­tor, the lan­guage used to de­scribe Ebola in this is rather sen­sa­tion­al­ized, and has been ac­cused of ex­ag­ger­a­tion. 

• Spillover: An­i­mal In­fec­tions and the Next Hu­man Pan­demic by David Quam­men (W.W. Nor­ton Co.) – I have read the Ebola sec­tions of this book and was im­pressed by Quammen's en­gag­ing, and bal­anced writ­ing. You've likely read his work in pop­u­lar press ar­ti­cles if not his full-length works.

• Pan­demic: Track­ing Con­ta­gions, from Cholera to Ebola and Be­yond by So­nia Shah (Sarah Crich­ton Books) – A more re­cent (2016) work fea­tur­ing a broad cov­er­age of hu­man-re­lated pan­demics. Au­thor Shah pre­vi­ously wrote a well-re­spected book on malaria and she is an­other fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to pop­u­lar press both writ­ten and radio/podcast.

• The Power of Plagues, Sec­ond Edi­tion by Ir­win W. Sher­man (ASM Press) – A com­pre­hen­sive sur­vey of in­fec­tious dis­ease spread through hu­man his­tory. I re­viewed this ti­tle pre­vi­ously for the blog. 

• And the Band Played On: Pol­i­tics, Peo­ple, and the AIDS Epi­demic by Randy Shilts (St. Martin's Grif­fin) – Also made into a film, I'm sure most have heard of this de­fin­i­tive his­tory of the AIDS epi­demic. A riv­et­ing and sor­row­ful look into the merg­ing of sci­ence, med­i­cine, so­ci­ety, and pol­i­tics. 

• Ill­ness as Metaphor & AIDS and Its Metaphors by Su­san Son­tag (Pen­guin Clas­sics) – A unique so­ci­o­log­i­cal per­spec­tive rel­e­vant to pan­demics that I think it's im­por­tant to re­mem­ber. Sontag's es­says re­mind us of how ill­ness is treated in lan­guage and so­cial in­ter­ac­tions – whether in­fec­tious or not. She speaks of the blame and spin that ac­com­pany nar­ra­tives that deal with hu­man tragedy, and which can en­hance the suf­fer­ing of the ill. Im­por­tant to re­mem­ber as we look at the ori­gin of SARS-CoV‑2, its spread, and the so­cioe­co­nom­i­cal di­vides that it lays bare. 

Fic­tion

• The Fever by Megan Ab­bott (Lit­tle, Brown and Co.) – Award-win­ning and char­ac­ter-dri­ven YA novel about a small-town high school that be­comes the breed­ing ground for a mys­te­ri­ous ill­ness. Though it may be clas­si­fied for young adults, its im­pact can be felt by any.

• Ship Fever: Sto­ries by An­drea Bar­rett (W.W. Nor­ton and Co.) – Na­tional Book Award-win­ning col­lec­tion of sto­ries by a bi­ol­ogy-trained writer. I used this in my Bi­ol­ogy in Fic­tion course as an ex­am­ple of 'real' sci­ence in fic­tion. Barrett's fe­male sci­en­tist char­ac­ters pop­u­late lit­er­ary sto­ries his­tor­i­cal to con­tem­po­rary and I couldn't rec­om­mend them more. The ti­tle story in this col­lec­tion, how­ever, is most rel­e­vant here. A pow­er­ful ac­count of love and sac­ri­fice amid ty­phus out­break among Irish im­mi­grants to Canada. 

• Year of Won­ders by Geral­dine Brooks (Pen­guin Books) – I still have yet to read her, but Brooks' his­tor­i­cal fic­tion is con­sis­tently praised. This novel is set in 1666 Lon­don, the apoc­a­lyp­tic set­ting of the last ma­jor Eng­lish bubonic plague epi­demic. 

• The Plague by Al­bert Ca­mus, trans­lated by Robin Buss (Pen­guin Books) – Speak­ing of plagues, what work could present it bet­ter than Ca­mus' La Peste? Long read mainly as a sym­bolic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of 'deeper' is­sues through a dis­ease, the novel is now be­ing re­dis­cov­ered for its ac­cu­rate science/medicine and de­scrip­tions of pan­demic in an ur­ban set­ting. Not sur­pris­ing, given the in­tel­lec­tual flow of ideas be­tween Ca­mus and mol­e­c­u­lar bi­ol­o­gist friend Jacques Monod. If you can't read the orig­i­nal French, this trans­la­tion is ideal to go with.

• Out­break by Robin Cook (Put­nam) – De­spite the ex­act same ti­tle and sim­i­lar sto­ry­line, this med­ical thriller is not the ba­sis for the 2005 film. I don't think the film is worth much at all, and I've never read Cook, but if you're look­ing for a fan­ci­ful, ex­cit­ing take on Ebola, this might be an al­ter­nate to The Hot Zone.

• The An­drom­eda Strain by Michael Crich­ton (Vin­tage) – Clas­sic early thriller from the au­thor of Juras­sic Park, this fea­tures sci­en­tists in­ves­ti­gat­ing the out­break of a deadly ex­trater­res­trial mi­crobe in New Mex­ico. Like sev­eral Crich­ton works, later adapted into a film.

 

• A Jour­nal of the Plague Year by Daniel De­foe (Dover Thrift) – An­other, more clas­sic story chron­i­cling life in 1665/1666 Lon­don dur­ing the Great Plague Epi­demic. First pre­sented as non­fic­tion, the text can be found for free on Project Guten­berg, but a Dover Thrift edi­tion hard copy of one's own won't set you back much.

• Feed by Mira Grant (Or­bit Books) – Pseu­do­nym for pro­lific sci­ence fiction/fantasy/horror au­thor Seanan McGuire, Mira Grant thrillers are hugely pop­u­lar quick reads. I read one en­try from her Par­a­sitol­ogy se­ries and found it de­cent en­ter­tain­ment, if bi­o­log­i­cally sus­pect. Feed is a re­cent ex­am­ple of the ubiq­ui­tous virus-turns-hu­mans-into-zom­bies plot. Re­views from friends of mine sug­gest Grant does the cliché well in in­ter­est­ing ways.

• Twelve Mon­keys by Eliz­a­beth Hand (Harper­Prism) – I wasn't go­ing to in­clude this at first, but Roberto men­tioned re­mem­ber­ing the movie. Then I saw that the nov­el­iza­tion was writ­ten by Eliz­a­beth Hand, who does some su­perb work. So this might in­deed be worth check­ing out along with Terry Gilliam's film. Props to those that also go watch the 1962 French La Jetée from Chris Marker that in­spired Gilliam's movie.

• The White Plague by Frank Her­bert (Tor Books) – The au­thor of the beloved Dune wrote this re­venge novel about a mol­e­c­u­lar bi­ol­o­gist whose fam­ily is killed by IRA ter­ror­ists, push­ing him into plans in­volv­ing a man­u­fac­tured plague that is car­ried by men and kills women. Re­leased within the na­tions whose pol­i­tics he views as given rise to the tragic events be­falling his fam­ily, he de­mands quar­an­tine to let the plague run its course and wipe out the pop­u­la­tion, or he will re­lease more. Not a feel-good kinda novel. 

• Love Is the Drug by Alaya Dawn John­son (Scholas­tic Books) – A young adult novel fea­tur­ing teens adapt­ing to a world where a deadly flu virus sweeps the na­tion, forc­ing quar­an­tines, cur­fews, and mar­tial law. I've read and en­joyed nu­mer­ous short spec­u­la­tive works by John­son. This won the Neb­ula Award for Best YA Novel and she has a new novel, Trou­ble the Saints, com­ing from Tor in June.

• The Stand (Com­plete and Un­cut) by Stephen King (Dou­ble­day Books) – I read this novel while home from school with the Chicken Pox and King's style and char­ac­ters quickly be­came in­flu­en­tial in my own am­a­teur lit­tle sto­ries. Clas­sic and lit­er­ally hefty work where hu­man­ity is quickly wiped out by a pan­demic and the sur­vivors strug­gle with bib­li­cal stakes in a post-apoc­a­lyp­tic world.

• The Scar­let Plague by Jack Lon­don (Project Guten­berg) – I didn't re­al­ize that Lon­don wrote a post-apoc­a­lyp­tic novella, but here you go. I have never read any­thing by him I liked, but maybe this genre will sit bet­ter. Avail­able for free, but harder to get in print other than pack­aged with other sto­ries.

• Sev­er­ance by Ling Ma (Far­rar, Straus and Giroux) – A newly re­leased 'off­beat of­fice novel' turns 'apoc­a­lyp­tic satire' fea­tur­ing a mil­len­nial so fo­cused on her work in self-se­ques­tra­tion that she barely no­tices a so­ci­ety-break­ing pan­demic rush through the New York out­side her win­dows. I caught no­tice of this one in a re­cent is­sue of The New Yorker, but haven't picked up a copy yet.

• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Man­del (Knopf Pub­lish­ing Group) – I am al­ways leery of 'lit­er­ary' au­thors that try their hand at post-apoc­a­lyp­tic genre. The genre field has al­ready done it. Far bet­ter, usu­ally. De­spite all of the love this novel gets, I've re­sisted read­ing it with that hes­i­tance. How­ever, Janie vouches for it be­ing awe­some, so I will even­tu­ally give it a read.

• The Mi­gra­tion by He­len Mar­shall (Ran­dom House/Titan) – Last year I re­viewed this novel for Strange Hori­zons, and I'll re­it­er­ate here just how great I think it is. Mar­shall uses her strengths at writ­ing oth­er­worldly eerie prose to paint the process of ado­les­cence reach­ing ma­tu­rity through a lens of fright­en­ing pan­demic change. 

• Swan Song by Robert R. Mc­Cam­mon (Pocket Books) – As thick as (or thicker than?) The Stand, this novel is an­other epic post-apoc­a­lypse fol­low­ing out­break novel, in this case pub­lished in 1987. I re­call it be­ing un­justly com­pared to King's novel, which though writ­ten well be­fore was rid­ing a re­boost from King's ris­ing pop­u­lar­ity. I re­ally want to reread Swan Song again be­cause I re­mem­ber ador­ing it, but lit­tle else.

• Blind­ness by José Sara­m­ago, trans­lated by Gio­vanni Pon­tiero (Houghton Mif­flin Har­court) – One of the nov­els noted by the No­bel Prize com­mit­tee when award­ing the Por­tuguese au­thor in 1998, the plot of this in­volves a mass epi­demic of blind­ness through­out an un­named city, closely fol­lowed by so­cial break­down. 

• Lock In by John Scalzi (Tor Books) – A po­lice procedural/science fic­tion mash-up genre novel set years fol­low­ing the re­lease of a highly con­ta­gious virus. While most of the in­fected only ex­press flu-like symp­toms, a 1% mi­nor­ity be­come ren­dered fully awake, but un­able to re­spond to stim­uli. 

• The End of Oc­to­ber by Lawrence Wright (Knopf Pub­lish­ing Group) – Com­ing soon, this med­ical thriller novel is al­ready mak­ing waves in the press for its pre­scient plot of global vi­ral pan­demic out­break. Fea­tur­ing a microbiologist/epidemiologist pro­tag­o­nist and writ­ten by a Pulitzer Prize-win­ning au­thor, it's a highly an­tic­i­pated ti­tle. I man­aged to get a pdf ad­vanced read­ing copy, so look for a re­view post on it here soon. 

Un­til then, happy read­ing!

 

Post­script added in proof:

Sunday's New York Times fea­tured an ar­ti­cle in the Opin­ion sec­tion en­ti­tled "What the Great Pan­demic Nov­els Teach Us" by Orhan Pa­muk, win­ner of the 2006 No­bel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture, and trans­lated from the Turk­ish by Ekin Ok­lap. Along with Dafoe's plague novel, it dis­cusses an early work by Man­zoni I hadn't known of, and men­tions a novel that Pa­muk is cur­rently writ­ing en­ti­tled "Nights of Plague". Given Pamuk's in­flu­ences in­clude Dos­to­evsky and Mann, I need to check out his nov­els and now ea­gerly await this new one. The ar­ti­cle is a nice con­sid­er­a­tion of our his­tor­i­cal re­sponse to pan­demic through lit­er­a­ture, and what that says about our hu­man­ity. Thanks to Elio for catch­ing this ar­ti­cle on­line be­fore its hard copy ap­pear­ance to me over morn­ing cof­fee.