Pandemic Book Club

[rachelmanija]

I fully expect that only me and Oyce actually want to do this, but just in case anyone else is interested and wants to read along, we're doing an informal pandemic book club.

We're going to start with The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry. It's fairly long/dense, so we'll read and post in sections. After that, we'll read some other pandemic books (mentioned in the first link).

No strict timeline, no actual rules. Basically we're just interested in learning more about pandemics. If you want to read other pandemic books, go for it and please link me. If you want to rec other pandemic books, please do!

Comments

[recessional]

*checks out the narrator for the audiobook* Yeah that'll do. (I need more background noise anyway, I've already run through several of my usual sequences.)

[batdina]

oddly (or maybe not) I've just begun reading this one. I'm in, for whatever that means with an inconsistent brain.

[slightweasel]

Well, that book looks fucking fascinating. I'm in! :D

[sovay]

If you want to rec other pandemic books, please do!

I'd love someone who isn't me to throw themselves on the grenade of finding out whether Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern (1983) is a good pandemic book or . . . not.

[marjorie1170]

I'm interested. Thanks for the rec.

[skygiants]

I read this one a few years ago, I'll be curious to hear your thoughts about it! (I still want someone to do a drinking game version where you take a shot every time John M. Barry uses his catchphrase, this was influenza, only influenza.)

For a rec, I more recently read Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 And How It Changed the World and thought it was extremely good.

[grayduck]

I read this right when COVID-19 was just starting out, in China. I had to put it down about halfway through when it was becoming apparent that we were going to be dealing with our own pandemic. I can only handle one pandemic's worth of anxiety at a time!

It was an excellent book, though. The first part is an in-depth look at what the medical field was like in the mid-to-late 19th century, and how the research and study side of medicine gained traction. It was fascinating and I felt like I learned a ton - my favorite kind of book. I'll go back to it eventually!

[akamarykate]

I was about 2/3 through listening to this in December when my mom went into the hospital with Influenza A. She was there until Christmas, dealt with complications all through January, and had a pacemaker installed in February because of what the flu had done to her heart. I don't think I'm ever going to go back and finish it, but it's good, solid research well told.

If you're looking for something about the Black Plague, I have 2 bookshelves full of stuff on it thanks to writing research, and my favorite by far is John Kelly's The Great Mortality.

[marycatelli]

Interesting how it affects how people read. Me, I don't even want to read it in fiction.

[naomikritzer]

I have a copy of "The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time" by John Kelly, but have not read it (yet).

I read "The Ghost Map" a couple of years ago, which is about the guy who figured out the link between the cholera outbreak and the Broad Street Pump, and also about the history of sanitation in the city of London. (Or, you know, its lack. Holy shit, its lack.) That book was great, FYI.

I pulled "Doomesday Book" (by Connie Willis) off the shelf the other week but haven't re-read it yet.

[sillylilly_bird]

I have this, but loaned it to a coworker. Alfred Crosby's "America's Forgotten Pandemic" is another one I can recommend.

[havocthecat]

Time to buy another history book! Like I don't have enough as it is? (You can never have enough.)

Another book on the 1918 influenza pandemic.

[kathmandu]

I read The Plague of the Spanish Lady, by Richard Collier. It's mostly based on interviews with survivors, so there are a lot of specific, concrete anecdotes with bits of summary overview.

It was *wild*. Very vivid. I read it twenty years ago when there was no current resonance, and some of those stories are with me to this day. I suspect it would be unlike any other books on the 1918 pandemic.