Pandemic Fiction

Among all the other books I've been reading over the past weeks, I've also been reading and re-reading heaps of pandemic novels. This appalls the kid -- why would I want to read about what I can watch happening in real time?

I can't say why, but I find it comforting.

In case you do as well, here are some titles featuring pandemics:

Naomi Kritzer, "So Much Cooking"

(Here's the essay Kritzer recently wrote, about seeing your story come true)

Connie Willis, The Doomsday Book

Meg Elison, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife

Mike Conner, Archangel

Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

Cecelia Holland, The Lords of Vaumartin

Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders 

Laura Kasischke, In a Perfect World

Stephen King, The Stand

Sarah Pinsker, A Song for a New Day

Daniel DeFoe, Journal of the Plague Year

George Stewart, The Earth Abides

Pat Frank, Alas, Babylon (Not a pandemic, but hits the same buttons for me)

Frank Herbert, The White Plague

Virginia Bergin, Who Runs the World?

Joanna Russ, The Female Man (Plague occurred eight centuries earlier)

Also worth reading