8 Pandemic-y Books to Read During Corona-Times

Sci-Fi, YA, classics, future dystopians, nonfiction: we've got a spoonful of book medicine for everyone.

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Toxin by Robin Cook

An OG medical thriller about E. coli. It’s got the excitement of a Grisham, and the medical mysteriousness of Untold Stories of the ER.

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

A deadly extraterrestrial virus threatens the country. Crichton (creator of ER, RIP) wrote this bad boy in 1969 and it’s been done and redone time and again for good reason.

Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez

Okay while this is certainly not a book about a pandemic per se, the time period in which it is set, and one of the main character’s jobs, has much to do with the cholera in the turn of the 20th century. It’s a classic love story by a Nobel Prize-winning author about a man whore and the one woman he loves.

Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel

This is a creepy post-apocalyptic dystopian book after a swine flu/COVID-esque pandemic wipes out basically everything. It’s called the Georgia Flu, which makes a lot of sense, because that state and its governor are probably going to assist in our country’s downfall.

Elevation Stephen King

We are admittedly not huge fans of Stephen King, but this one was kind of sweet and uplifting (figuratively and literally). It’s probably the most positive out of this bunch—a strange illness captivates a man and his close friends in a sleepy town.

Wilder Girls Rory Power

While this is a YA, the content is pretty intense. It’s a suspenseful, girl power, f’ed up story about survival when a girls boarding school on a remote island turns out to be more than that—and they’re becoming infected by something deadly called the Tox. Psst. Julie wrote a full review of Wilder Girls on the Bookshelf.

Polio: An American Story David Oshinsky

There are so many fascinating nonfiction reads about disease, but this one was particularly interesting to me. Oshinsky won a Pulitzer for his work on the epidemic that raged during the 40s and 50s.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

Well I love Geraldine Brooks, who won the Pulitzer for March, one of my favs. She’s known for her obscure historic fiction, and this one is no different. Year of Wonders is from the point of view of a housemaid in the 1600s when a village quarantines itself during the plague.

+Bonus!

At the time of this original posting, Emma Donaghue's newest book, The Pull of the Stars, had not yet debuted--and then I couldn't get my hands on it because #COVID and also the demand.

WELL. I read it in one sitting and it was simply incredible. Definitely making my Top 10 of 2020!! Get The Pull of the Stars on Bookshop now! Review is coming and can't wait to know what you guys think.