10 Books to Read During An Epidemic

As a reader, I tend to be a fan of themes. What I mean by that is that I like to read groups of books that go with seasons or events, like reading scary books around Halloween or books set on the beach during the summer. When we get close to an election I often find myself reading nonfiction that is related to politics – like a presidential biography, for example. So it wasn’t a stretch for me to look for books about epidemics as I sit at home during the COVID-19 phenomenon.

I realize that this is topic that is simultaneously tricky and intriguing for many people. While I am not bothered by digging deeper into stories of and the science and history behind epidemics, I know that folks who are suffering from heightened anxiety as a result of this virus might want to steer clear of books that revolve around these topics. If that’s you, click away! I don’t want to stress you out, my friend.

But if you like to deep dive like I do, read on and prepare yourself for a list of novels and nonfiction titles about everything from rabies to the Spanish flu, with a few made up diseases in between. The first six books are ones that I have personally read and can comment on, and the last four are books that I haven’t gotten to yet but that look very promising. Let me know in the comments if I missed any good ones! I’m always open to a great recommendation, even if it’s not about an epidemic. Any old apocalypse will do.

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Station Eleven

Let just start out with the obvious one, shall we? If you’ve never read Station Eleven (although I’m pretty sure most people have by this point), you really need to pick it up, even if you wait till after this epidemic is over. I listened to it on audio last fall and was searching for chores to do so I could keep my earbuds in longer. It was enthralling and there was no way I could have predicted where the story was going. I even listed it on my best of 2019 list.

Amazon Description: Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end. 

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.

The Girl in Red

Another book from my best of 2019 list, I almost put this one down after the first couple of pages because it has a pretty dark tone and I get scared easily, but I’m glad I didn’t because it turned out to be a surprisingly hopeful story with several twists I didn’t anticipate. The thing that most intrigued me about this book when I first heard about it is that it is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, and I love nothing better than a good retelling. Apparently this author has several other retellings too, so I’m adding them to my list to check out later.

Amazon Description: It’s not safe for anyone  alone in the woods. There are predators that come out at night: critters and coyotes, snakes and wolves. But the woman in the red jacket has no choice. Not since the Crisis came, decimated the population, and sent those who survived fleeing into quarantine camps that serve as breeding grounds for death, destruction, and disease. She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that doesn’t look anything like the one she grew up in, the one that was perfectly sane and normal and boring until three months ago.

There are worse threats in the woods than the things that stalk their prey at night. Sometimes, there are men. Men with dark desires, weak wills, and evil intents. Men in uniform with classified information, deadly secrets, and unforgiving orders. And sometimes, just sometimes, there’s something worse than all of the horrible people and vicious beasts combined. Red doesn’t like to think of herself as a killer, but she isn’t about to let herself get eaten up just because she is a woman alone in the woods….

Zone One

You guys…I have mixed feelings about this one. Basically I thought it was way too wordy. I listened to it on audio and I often found my mind wandering because he just has so many words about nothing. It felt forced, like the author was trying too hard to be clever and literary. I also had a hard time caring about the characters, which was also true when I tried to read The Underground Railroad a few years ago (that’s a whole other conversation because I felt really guilty about not having more sympathy, even at the time). I think I just don’t like Colton Whitehead’s writing style, but I know there are plenty of people who do, so if you enjoyed his other books there’s a good chance you’ll like this one as well.

Amazon Description: A pandemic has devastated the planet, sorting humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead. After the worst of the plague is over, armed forces stationed in Chinatown’s Fort Wonton have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street—aka Zone One. Mark Spitz is a member of one of the three-person civilian sweeper units tasked with clearing lower Manhattan of the remaining feral zombies. Zone One unfolds over three surreal days in which Spitz is occupied with the mundane mission of straggler removal, the rigors of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder (PASD), and the impossible task of coming to terms with a fallen world. And then things start to go terribly wrong…

At once a chilling horror story and a literary novel by a contemporary master, Zone One is a dazzling portrait of modern civilization in all its wretched, shambling glory.

As Bright as Heaven

This story was just beautiful. I absolutely fell in love with this family and was rooting for each of them through all of their many trials and tribulations. Even though there is plenty of heartbreak, there is also an abundance of hope that kept me reading. I also thought the setting was unique, particularly in relation to the storyline. What a fascinating idea to chronicle a devastating pandemic through the eyes of a family of undertakers.

Amazon Description: In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its cobblestone streets. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters—Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa—a chance at a better life.

But just months after they arrive, the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew. But even as they lose loved ones, they take in a baby orphaned by the disease who becomes their single source of hope. Amidst the tragedy and challenges, they learn what they cannot live without—and what they are willing to do about it.

As Bright as Heaven is the compelling story of a mother and her daughters who find themselves in a harsh world not of their making, which will either crush their resolve to survive or purify it.

Rabid: A Cultural history of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus

The first nonfiction pick on my list, I was surprised by how enthralled I was with this book. To be fair, I have always liked science, and was particularly fascinated with Louis Pasteur as a kid, so I guess it makes sense that I would enjoy a scientific and cultural history of the rabies virus. I learned a lot and appreciated the balance of seriousness and humor the authors brought to this topic.

Amazon Description: A maddened creature, frothing at the mouth, lunges at an innocent victim—and, with a bite, transforms its prey into another raving monster. It’s a scenario that underlies our darkest tales of supernatural horror, but its power derives from a very real virus, a deadly scourge known to mankind from our earliest days. In this fascinating exploration, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart four thousand years in the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies.

The most fatal virus known to science, rabies kills nearly 100 percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. A disease that spreads avidly from animals to humans, rabies has served throughout history as a symbol of savage madness, of inhuman possession. And today, its history can help shed light on the wave of emerging diseases, from AIDS to SARS to avian flu, that we now know to originate in animal populations. 

From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh, fascinating, and often wildly entertaining look at one of mankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes. 

The Hot Zone

Warning: This is book is not for the squeamish. It is full of really gross, terrifying descriptions of the symptoms of Ebola, which is a virus that makes COVID-19 look like a sweet little kitten. That being said, it was so, so interesting and unputdownable in a can’t-look-away-from-the-train-wreck kind of way. The people the author interviewed and studied are fascinating, the work they do is fascinating, and this virus and the way it spreads and operates is scary, but fascinating. The events in this book took place in the 80’s and 90’s, which is before my ability to remember and that probably explains why I had no idea any of it happened.

Amazon Description: A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic “hot” virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their “crashes” into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.

Still On My TBR

The Stand

Can I just start out by admitting that I have never read a single Stephen King book? I might have mentioned this before, but I don’t do dark and scary. So I’m caught between wanting to read this door-top of a post-plague story and being a scaredy-cat. Someone please reassure me that I can handle it.

Amazon Description: This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides — or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail — and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

Severance

The thing that draws me the most to this book is that one reviewer described it as “offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire”. A pandemic with a sense of humor? Sign me up! I heard about this one for the first time just a few days ago on the What Should I Read Next podcast and I was immediately intrigued.

Amazon Description: Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend.

So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.

Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.

I Am Legend

Most of us are probably familiar with the movie version of this classic horror/sci-fi book, you know, the one with Will Smith? This book is pretty short, coming in at around 150 pages, so if you are looking for an epidemic book you can get through in one sitting, this is it.

Amazon Description: The population of the entire world has been obliterated by a pandemic of vampire bacteria. Yet somehow, Robert Neville survived. He must now struggle to make sense of what happened and learn to protect himself against the vampires who hunt him nightly.
 
As months of scavenging and hiding turn to years marked by depression and alcoholism, Robert spends his days hunting his tormentors and researching the cause of their affliction. But the more he discovers about the vampires around him, the more he sees the unsettling truth of who is—and who is not—a monster.

Crisis in the Red Zone

This book is the follow up to The Hot Zone, mentioned above. While I might not have been old enough to be aware of an Ebola scare in the 90’s, I definitely remember watching the news of an outbreak unfold in 2013-2014. I’m almost a little scared to read this one, because Ebola is one bad mamma-jamma and I hope I never live to see a true epidemic. Still, in the interest of being informed (and because I’m think I might have a latent interest in virology) I will be reading this one as soon as my library has it available.

Amazon Description: This time, Ebola started with a two-year-old child who likely had contact with a wild creature and whose entire family quickly fell ill and died. The ensuing global drama activated health professionals in North America, Europe, and Africa in a desperate race against time to contain the viral wildfire. By the end—as the virus mutated into its deadliest form, and spread farther and faster than ever before—30,000 people would be infected, and the dead would be spread across eight countries on three continents.

In this taut and suspenseful medical drama, Richard Preston deeply chronicles the pandemic, in which we saw for the first time the specter of Ebola jumping continents, crossing the Atlantic, and infecting people in America. Rich in characters and conflict—physical, emotional, and ethical—Crisis in the Red Zone is an immersion in one of the great public health calamities of our time.

Preston writes of doctors and nurses in the field putting their own lives on the line, of government bureaucrats and NGO administrators moving, often fitfully, to try to contain the outbreak, and of pharmaceutical companies racing to develop drugs to combat the virus. He also explores the charged ethical dilemma over who should and did receive the rare doses of an experimental treatment when they became available at the peak of the disaster.

Crisis in the Red Zone makes clear that the outbreak of 2013–2014 is a harbinger of further, more severe outbreaks, and of emerging viruses heretofore unimagined—in any country, on any continent. In our ever more interconnected world, with roads and towns cut deep into the jungles of equatorial Africa, viruses both familiar and undiscovered are being unleashed into more densely populated areas than ever before.