9 pandemic books that are oddly soothing now I've lived through one
I’ve always enjoyed pandemic books, though before I’d lived through a pandemic I thought of them as end-of-the-world or books, but I guess they can also come under apocalyptic books as well, though that invites some other world-ending scenarios to the table.
Is it weird that I find them strangely soothing?
I think there’s something very human, very anxiety-ridden thirty-something (aka me), in exploring ideas of how and when and why life as we know it might end someday, possibly even in our lifetime, especially having lived through the Coronavirus pandemic. There’s a comfort in knowing that it’s a line of questioning that lots of people feel drawn to and that even when the world is ending, life goes on in some way, shape or form.
So, pandemic novels. I loved them.
I was actually reading a pandemic novel - about a pandemic uncomfortably close to ours - as the UK went into lockdown on 23 March 2020:
I’ll admit that it was a while before I picked up another, but I read one recently and while the book wasn’t a favourite, it did give me back my appetite for this type of literature. I can’t help but wonder if there will be a stalling in pandemic books as a result of the trauma of the whole thing - there’s very little about the Spanish Influenza pandemic in the early 20th Century, after all - or if we’ll be inundated with them as people write their way through the aftermath.
‘Are You Happy Now’ by Hanna Jameson - this is the one I mentioned above that I just read and it’s a really interesting version of a pandemic where people just sit down and…stop living. It appears as if they simply give up.
‘How High We Go in the Dark’ by Sequoia Nagamatsu - this is a high-concept novel but also short story collection of linked characters through the history of a pandemic, unlocked by the melting of ancient Arctic ice.
‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St John Mandel - probably the most widely read and popular pandemic novel on this list, flicking from 30 years before to 20 years after a pandemic wipes 95% of the planet and a band of travelling Shakespearian actors travel the globe telling stories.
‘Severance’ by Ling Ma - I was reading this as we went into lockdown in 2020 and just like Covid, this is a respiratory pandemic transmitted through the air, and the ravages of capitalism meaning we just carry on making the rich rich while people die around us. Bleak and beautiful.
‘I am Legend’ by Richard Matheson - a vampire classic! I love interesting takes on the vampire myth and this is a particularly brilliant one that feels like a really different take on a pandemic.
‘The Day of the Triffids’ by John Wyndham another sci-fi classic! A freak meteor shower blinds every person who witnesses it, leaving room for the seemingly-conscious, carnivorous plants to start their take over of England.
‘The Age of Miracles’ by Karen Thompson Walker - I adore this YA novel about the way the world falls apart and takes on a pandemic-like state as the rotation of the Earth slows and slows and slows… Absolutely beautiful.
‘Oryx and Crake’ by Margaret Atwood - this is the only one on this list that I haven’t read, and it’s one I’m really nervous about. I’m fairly ambivalent about Atwood’s books (sorry, I know that’s a crime), but this calls to me.
‘Last One at the Party’ by Bethany Clift - I wrote a full review of this one because I loved it so much!
A few extra notes on formative apocalyptic books that shaped my interest as a teen reader:
‘Life As We Knew It’ by Susan Beth Pfeffer
‘Gone’ by Michael Grant
Dystopian YA as a whole genre - hats off to you
Are you a fan of pandemic or end of the world books? Do you have any favourites that I need to read?
Written by Sophie
