6 pandemic books to read during this never-ending nightmare
I am writing this on Monday 27th December 2021 as we await the potential new restrictions which could be announced in the next few days and it feels like it’s never going to end, so let’s read some books about pandemics, shall we? Because books and stories and fictional pandemics END.
For some people, reading about a situation that you’re in the middle of can be too much, but for some it can be a strange kind of comfort, and I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I have read a few pandemic novels during the last two years and while some have made me feel a bit funny, the other have actually been weirdly hopeful and reassuring.
These are a few of the best pandemic books I’ve read, and a few on my wishlist.
‘Last One at the Party’ by Bethany Clift - this stunningly written debut actually features Covid, but it’s main focus is the apocalyptic virus (that’s essential Covid x100) that comes after it. It’s funny, compelling and I wrote a full review here.
‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St John Mandel - beloved dog is already something of a classic, and it’s a hopeful view of the pandemic and life afterwards. It’s full of found family, art, Shakespeare and the most beautiful writing.
‘Severance’ by Ling Ma - Candance is devoted to the mind-numbing routine of her manhattan office job, even as an airborne respiratory virus slowly ends life as we know it. This is a wonderful dark, satirical, coming-of-age novel that lots of people have fallen for over the last few years.
‘The Age of Miracles’ by Karen Thompson Walker - I read this YA novel way back when a pandemic/post-apocalyptic scenario felt like something only found in fiction about what happens to society when the rotation of the earth begins to slow and the battle between normal life and pandemic life arises. So, so good. Thoughtful, beautiful and quietly mesmerising.
‘The Day of the Triffids’ by John Wyndham - Wyndham is a genuine modern classic sci-fi author and this is his most famous novel. it starts with a strange meteor shower that kicks off a pandemic/post-apocalyptic aftermath that is closer to ‘The Age of Miracles’ than ‘Station Eleven’ when murderous plants start attacking the people blinded by the meteor shower.
‘Oryx and Crake’ by Margaret Atwood - this is the only novel on this list that I haven’t read yet, and that’s mainly because I have mixed feelings about Atwood’s writing, but something about this intrigues me. There’s honestly not much I can find about the actual plot, but it’s been on my radar for a long time.
Have you come around the pandemic books yet? Or will you be steering clear of them for a long while yet?
Written by Sophie
