Pandemic novels Archives

Sea of Tranquility

by Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel weaves a tapestry of stories like no other. In her latest novel, she picks up three main threads: an exiled eighteen year old who hears an unusual sound while trekking the Canadian forest, an author whose book tour takes her to the moon, and a detective whose investigation will tie these tales together. We follow these characters from 1912 to 2401 in a unique story of space, time, art, and a pandemic. I was just as struck by the structure of Mandel’s work as I was by the character development—her books, while quiet and character-centered—are surprisingly propulsive. I enjoyed this mind-bending and utterly unique novel on the physical page, but if you adore multiple narrators, try the audiobook for a fully immersive experience.

Violeta

by Isabel Allende

Allende is prolific: her earliest works might be considered modern classics, yet her recent releases feel fresh. This sweeping epic begins on a stormy day in 1920. The titular heroine is born in the midst of the Spanish Flu—and tumultuous times have just begun for her family. Told in epistolary form, this novel almost reads like a juicy autobiography, following Violeta’s love affairs, heartbreaks, and responses to historical events. If you’ve never read any Allende, you can absolutely start here, then work your way back to see how she’s influenced the historical fiction genre.

The Stand

by Stephen King

If you're not a horror reader but want to give Stephen King a try, this massive novel is on your short list of options. As in Station Eleven, the apocalypse comes in the form of a super-flu that wipes out 99% of the population, and leaves the others quickly choosing sides in a battle of good vs. evil. This is decidedly creepy not not scary like It or The Shining. I added this to my TBR list after I LOVED 11/22/63.

Lucy by the Sea

by Elizabeth Strout

I sat down with this book on a Saturday and read the entire thing because I didn't want to put it down. It is a pandemic story, following Lucy as she escapes with her companion from New York City to the coast of Maine. The conversations in this book are about the pandemic, but also about the fragility of life and what it means to be in relationship with others, and I found it touching, sad, but ultimately life-affirming.

Blindness

by José Saramago

In Nobel Prize–winning author Saramago’s experimental South American novel, a “white blindness” epidemic hits a city card. The blind are sent to a mental hospital to try to contain the virus, leaving them vulnerable to theft and assault. It’s a powerful tale of us vs them, the blind vs the sighted, and what it means to keep your humanity in the face of the unknown. I recommended this experimental South American novel to Max Dunn on episode 48 of What Should I Read Next. (He read it; he liked it.)

Romantic Comedy

by Curtis Sittenfeld

From team member, Sara: Sittenfeld's latest release packs a one-two punch of celebrity romance and pandemic drama. Comedy writer Sally Millz and heartthrob musician Noah Brewster cross paths when he guest hosts The Night Owls (think Saturday Night Live), but Sally dismisses their obvious chemistry as a one-time anomaly. But when the pandemic hits, they reconnect and realize their spark is still alive. Epistolary novel fans should know that this story delivers some fantastic email exchanges. The ending is satisfyingly hopeful—the perfect summer read. For fans of Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta's The View Was Exhausting and Linda Holmes's Evvie Drake Starts Over.

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague

by Geraldine Brooks

From the publisher: "Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a 'year of wonders.'"

Tom Lake

by Ann Patchett

This is the novel I didn't know I was longing to read, with its tender familial relationships, Michigan cherry orchard setting, and insider look at summer stock theater. When Lara is nearing sixty and the pandemic is just beginning, her three adult daughters return home for the summer. The girls have long romanticized their mother’s once-upon-a-time romance with a megastar actor, and now, all together again, the girls direct Lara to tell them the whole story from the beginning. She unspools her story slowly, over three long weeks harvesting cherries on the family property. I’m still not sure how I feel about the ending, but this story? Absolutely gorgeous. I can’t wait to read it again. For fans of Rebecca Serle’s One Italian Summer and Anne Enright’s Actress.

The Dog Stars

by Peter Heller

Hig is the lone survivor of a flu pandemic, save for his dog and a gun-toting loner. Or so he thinks. When he receives a random transmission on the radio, he begins to dream of what might exist beyond life on the hangar. Heller’s post-apocalyptic novel is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD but you don’t have to have read that in order to appreciate the way Heller examines the landscape between hope and despair.

How High We Go in the Dark

by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Set in 2030, this debut climate fiction follows scientists in Siberia who discover the preserved remains of a girl. She appears to have died of an ancient virus. A virus that is highly contagious once thawed, unleashing a global Arctic Plague. From there, the story explores the way we respond and adapt to tragedy, as well as the impact on our planet. As some cities and states fall underwater, other areas build funerary skyscrapers and euthanasia amusement parks. Scientists try to create artificial organs for transplant, while others look for a new planet. It is as much about these changes as it is about what ties and connects our humanity to each other.

As Bright as Heaven

by Susan Meissner

The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic isn't nearly as unfamiliar to us as it was a year ago—now that we've seen a pandemic firsthand and witnessed countless charts, graphs, and comparisons to the past. But when Meissner was writing this book, it was little known to contemporary readers. In fact, even many months after it was published, Meissner bemoaned that though 50 million people died of the 1918 influenza, we appeared then to be making little effort to remember. In her novel, Pauline Bright and her husband are newly arrived in Philadelphia with their three daughters; they hope to give their girls a chance at a better life. But shortly after arriving in Philadelphia, the great illness that came to be known as the Spanish flu meets them in their new city, bringing loss and heartache in its wake. But there's also hope, as the family takes in a baby orphaned by the illness. (Please be mindful of whether you're ready to read a pandemic tale before picking this one up!)

Joan Is Okay

by Weike Wang

In this first person, character-driven narrative, we meet thirtysomething ICU doctor Joan. Her relationships with her Chinese and Chinese American family members are fraught, and her inability to read cues makes friendship and neighborliness tricky, but her great love for her work is utterly uncomplicated—that is, until her father dies. Her workaholism has always been seen as an attribute in her NYC hospital, but when she takes just 48 hours off to fly to Shanghai and back for his funeral, HR steps in and makes her take some extended time off. Without the distraction of work, Joan is forced to reckon with the things she's been avoiding, in all their complexity and ambiguity. But then COVID-19 enters the story, with devastating effects in her personal and professional life. I so appreciated being let into Joan's interior world: her cool assessments of the people around her, her dry (and sometimes unintentional) humor, and her frank reckoning with individual and societal struggles. Catherine Ho's excellent audiobook narration was a wonderful way to experience this story.

Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell

In her sweeping new novel, Maggie O’Farrell takes a few historically known facts about Shakespeare’s wife and family and, from this spare skeleton, builds out a lush, vivid world. You should know this book is devastating, and I consumed the better part of a box of Kleenex while reading it. Yet with its captivating central character and evocative storytelling, I didn’t want to leave Shakespeare’s world—or put down O’Farrell’s writing. The story centers on Agnes, Shakespeare’s wife, who is torn apart by grief when their son Hamnet dies at age 11. Soon after, Shakespeare writes Hamlet—and O’Farrell convincingly posits that the two events are closely tied. In her distinctive style, O’Farrell takes you to the heart of what really matters in life, making you feel such a deep sense of loss for Hamnet that you won’t look at your own life the same way.

Dayswork: A Novel

by Chris Bachelder, Jennifer Habel

In the endless days of the pandemic, a woman spends her time sorting fact from fiction in the life and work of Herman Melville. As she delves into Melville’s impulsive purchase of a Massachusetts farmhouse, his fevered revision of Moby-Dick there, his intense friendship with neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his troubled and troubling marriage to Elizabeth Shaw, she becomes increasingly obsessed by what his devotion to his art reveals about cost, worth, and debt. Her preoccupation both deepens and expands, and her days’ work extends outward to an orbiting cast of Melvillean questers and fanatics, as well as to biographers and writers—among them Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell—whose lives resonate with Melville’s. As she pulls these distant figures close, her quarantine quest ultimately becomes a midlife reckoning with her own marriage and ambition.

Songs for the End of the World

by Saleema Nawaz

This book moves back and forth in time and between perspectives as it follows a first responder in New York, a pregnant singer, and an author, all living through a global pandemic (yes, you read that right.) I avoided all pandemic-related books for a while, but this story of resilience and hope struck just the right notes for me. Narrated by a full cast including Alex Payton-Beesley, Amelia Sargisson, and more.

Indigo Canada

All That’s Left in the World

by Erik J. Brown

In this YA post-apocalyptic novel, two teen boys connect after most of the world’s population succumbed to a deadly virus, including their loved ones. Andrew is injured and starved when he happens upon Jamie’s house. They have every reason not to trust each other in this dangerous new world but they forge a tentative bond while they shelter together. But there’s no such thing as safety for long and they have to flee. As they do their best to survive, they’ll have to navigate secrets and whether to take a risk on romance. My daughter absolutely loved this one.

The Cellist

by Daniel Silva

I had a good idea of what to expect from this Gabriel Allon story: a fast-moving spy novel with a smart sense of humor. Allon recruits the titular cellist—a savvy banker by day—to go undercover to bust a corrupt Russian billionaire. Silva often weaves current events into his stories: the coronavirus is ever-present in these pages, and in his Author's Note Silva explains he wrote an entirely new ending after the January 6 Capitol siege. It felt a little long in places, but I still enjoyed this story of revenge, money, and power; I especially admired the recurring motif of improvisation.

The Andromeda Strain

by Michael Crichton

Crichton’s classic thriller about a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism has staying power. When the US government ignores a warning about insufficient decontamination procedures for returning space probes, the repercussions are deadly. A satellite falls and lands in a remote part of Arizona, subsequently killing everyone in a nearby town. And that’s only the beginning.

The Sentence

by Louise Erdrich

What to say about this book? By turns delightful and dreadful, it's set inside the very real independent bookstore Birchbark Books, owned by novelist Louise Erdrich, and takes place from November 2019 to November 2020. Wonderful and beautiful and at times laugh-out-loud funny, but also heart-stopping in its descriptions of the Covid-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd (which took place just a few miles away). Avid readers take note: this book about books includes more than 150 book recommendations, which are thoughtfully compiled in an appendix. Make sure to take a look at the back matter, or download the audiobook supplement if you read in that format, as I did.

Severance: A Novel

by Ling Ma

Candace Chen, a second-generation immigrant, works for a publisher in Manhattan and is so committed to her daily routine, she doesn’t even notice the plague that wipes out almost everyone in NYC. Healthy but alone, she eventually emerges to the abandoned city and is found by a small band of survivors led by a cultist. As they travel to the Facility, Candace must decide where true freedom lies.

Pandemic novels