With widespread panic caused due to coronavirus, we all are apt to educate ourselves to procure ourselves with all pandemics and disease. Minds of many people are covered with pandemic but most of them rarely know the exact situation and definitions of the current scenario. Here are some best pandemic books mentioned below, precisely defining each situation. The books suggested in the article show how pandemic folds over time and how societies deal with them.
Let’s get educated with the best pandemic books:
1. A Journal of the Plague Year- City Of London
Author: Daniel Defoe
Published In: 1722
An account of experiences from 1665 to 1666, the bubonic plague undertook Britain and ravaged the city of London. This explains the pandemic situation and death of roughly one-quarter of its community in just 18 months. Presented as an eyewitness realistic account of the plague’s effects on the city. Defoe’s novel expertly explains how families were forced to be quarantined due to an infected family member: Mostly into the houses with the most unfortunate howls and outcries of the poor people. Frightened with the terror of losing the loved ones and struggling to survive to make this book worth reading to understand the situation struggle of surviving. In the book, the author goes to great pains to achieve an effect of verisimilitude. Defoe’s account seems to include much systematic and detailed research.
Pale Horse, Pale Rider- Set of Three Short Novels
Author: Katherine Anne Porter
Published In: 1939
Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a set of three short novels “Old Mortality,” “Noon Wine” and the eponymous “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” which revolves around the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918. A young woman falling in love with a soldier, as both influenza and World War I. In all the sets of stories mentioned, harsh and tragic truths are expressed in prose brilliantly. These short novels proudly hold the reputation of the author.
The Plague – French Algerian City of Oran
Author: Albert Camus
Published In: 1947
The Plague is a novel that narrates the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The title is self-explanatory, at once a masterfully crafted novel. This gripping tale explains the human horror and story of a survival battle. The books can be read in two ways to get the most of it, as a metaphor for the horrors of fascism and as an inference to a cholera epidemic in Algeria in 1849.
The reality of that time is almighty, eliminating all traces of the past and forcing its victims to harsh suffering, insanity, and compassion.
The Andromeda Strain – Efforts Of Scientists
Author: Michael Crichton
Published In: 1969
The Andromeda Strain documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating and enduring an epidemic caused by an anonymous extraterrestrial microorganism. Two years later, seventeen satellites were sent into peripheries of space to collect organisms and dust for study. One of them falls to earth, landing in a desolate area of Arizona leaving only two survivors. The U.S. government proposed the mobilize Project Wildfire, a top-secret emergency response protocol. Scientists facing comprehend and an unexpected crisis, shocking discoveries are made.
‘Bird Box’- A Netflix Adaptation
Author: Josh Malerman
Published In: 2014
Post-apocalyptic novel and the debut novel exists on the borderline of horror and thriller but the story cleverly explains the current scenario. The story was so valuable that it got adapted into a Netflix feature film that revolves around a pandemic in which people are forced to deadly violence after taking a glimpse at a mysterious phenom. Something very serious and very deadly. The story depicts a terrifying scenario of a world trapped and unable to feel the outside surroundings, seemingly foreshadowing the social distancing currently practiced amid the coronavirus pandemic.
‘The Stand’- A Nanosecond Error
Author: Stephen King
Published In: 1978
Post-apocalyptic dark fantasy novel gained its attention with plot centers on a pandemic of a weaponized strain of influenza that kills nearly the entire world population. This is how the world ends in a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory. The few survivors, united in groups, discover new social conformity and engage in confrontation with each other. With a basic error, 99% population diminished make this book thrilling and terrifying. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors to be chosen. The stand was highly appreciated as by literary critics and also considered as Stephen’s best novel. Reviewers also praised the believability of the story. You can feel the characters and devastation of humanity.
Journals of the Plague Years – Mutating Disease
Author: Norman Spinrad
Published In: 1990
The novel plots around the political urgency to much of Spinrad’s science fiction. Mysterious origin yet widespread outbreak of a regularly transmuting virus HIV and AIDS in the 1980s. For 20 years quarantined cities, sexual mercenaries condemned to death and a scientist who dedicated his whole life to search for the cure and himself left with only 10 weeks. The book follows the struggle and literal questions of life and deaths. The story is to discover that only the only thing dangerous than the plague is the cure. With such practicality and arouse the book is a must-read.
The Child Garden – Virus As a Tool
Author: Geoff Ryman
Published In: 1989
The Child Garden is a science fiction novel dealing in a futuristic society in which the young are raised in Child Garden and viruses are used as a tool to benefit and educate humans. The world comprises many cures that were difficult in back days such as cancer but life spans have been reduced as an unexpected consequence. The novel conceptualizes on sickness, health, and mortality, also hold a reflective approach to fiction. With such a fiction approach to the reality of life, The Child Garden is one of the best pandemic books to read.
Ammonite – Change In Gender and Humanity
Author: Nicola Griffith
Published In: 1992
Ammonite. by Nicola Griffith is an award-winning novel with a futuristic approach to an epidemic that demands a change in gender society. The only option available on the planet os change or die. Killing the men forever and altering the few surviving women and all set on a future on the planet where a virus has had a significant impact on the travelers sent from Earth to explore it. Washington, Griffith has been offering firsthand explanation and analysis on COVID-19 based on King County. The novel is an unforgettable work that questions gender and humanity. The story is the self-exploration with the help of an alien world. With such unforgettable approach, definitely makes on the list of best pandemic books
Beauty Salon – A Place For Refuge
Author: Mario Bellatin
Published In:1995
Name of the novel defines beauty but the story doesn’t. The plot evokes profoundly disturbing plague and world devastated by a pandemic affecting only men, strange isn’t it! Rapid deaths and some of the sick have nowhere to finish out their days. The novel’s narrator runs a beauty salon, which it offers to the refuge. The whole beauty shop turning into a medieval hospice. The guests continue to arrive and die the isolation of the shop becomes more and more complete. With such a unique pandemic story, Beauty Salon strongly takes place in the list of best pandemic books.
Blindness – Nobel Prize -Winning Recognition
Author: José Saramago
Published In: 1995
Blindness is the novel by Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author. A city hit with an epidemic of white blindness which results in several people within a city turning blind. Blindness is a plague story that evokes the vivid and trembling horrors of the twentieth century. This novel was one of the writer’s best work that was also noted by the committee when announcing the award. Book by an award-winning writer and with such great deepness this book is a must-read and one of the best pandemic books.
The Years of Rice and Salt- An Empty Europe
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Published In: 2002
Again a science fiction on the list and one of the most apocalyptic novels. Over the years in the 14th century, the bubonic plague decimated millions of people in Europe. A plot revolved around that one character described as a mutation of the plague and killed off all its hosts and therefore died itself. Almost 99% European population got killed by the black death plague and remained largely empty for centuries in the world of this novel creating a very different balance on the globe. Showing such side of Europe The Years of Rice and Salt is counted under the list of best pandemic books.
Oryx and Crake- The Last Human
Author: Margaret Atwood
Published In: 2003
An unforgettable love story and describes a world devastated by the effects of genetic engineering, including a plague that killed almost all humans only men surviving. The story involves powerful corporations taking over mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood takes to the nearest future which is beyond imagination yet relatable. This science fiction and adventure romance are based on thorough research and technicality.
Conclusion
With such pandemic going all around the globe, here is the exact time to show your patience and sensibility. The coronavirus pandemic has taken the world by storm leaving many to stay at home healthily and virus free. The mentioned above books are the best pandemic books to make you understand the situation and with much valuable information.
Moreover, they tackle a cast staying indoors out of necessity or even the scientists dealing with an epidemic caused by an extraterrestrial microorganism these pandemic books have explored the approach of pandemic situations around the globe.
Do let us know in the comment section how you liked this article and suggestions or queries or are always appreciated, you can ask them by commenting below. And do not forget to stay safe, stay healthy, and stand strong against any difficult situation.