In my day job working for a charity, I work with emergency planners, examining how we can minimise the harm caused by disasters, including outbreaks of disease. I’m fascinated by the measures in place to deal with catastrophes, and how contingency planners respond on a practical and a human level. When writing my novel about a killer virus, I devoured both fiction and non-fiction books tackling pandemics ranging from the Black Death to Aids. I am confident I know the skills needed to survive when a pandemic reduces the world’s population to a small, doughty band of survivors. I am not confident I possess these skills.
You can’t talk about pandemic novels without referencing the granddaddy of them all - The Plague by Albert Camus. I loved this book so much I named one of my lead characters Bernard, after the hero in the book. The plot: a small town in Algeria is affected by an outbreak of plague, and a group of town folk work together to try to overcome their helplessness in the face of death. They deal with some very recognisable problems – corruption, bureaucracy, quarantine… Some people have read the book as really being about the French resistance to the German occupation during World War Two. Either way, it’s a very relatable read, and sales of it went through the roof during the early days of Covid!
“Its relevance lashes you across the face.” —Stephen Metcalf, The Los Angeles Times • “A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair.” —Roger Lowenstein, The Washington Post
A haunting tale of human resilience and hope in the face of unrelieved horror, Albert Camus' iconic novel about an epidemic ravaging the people of a North African coastal town is a classic of twentieth-century literature.
The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they…
This is one of my all-time favourite novels. It opens with an actor dying on stage, on what turns out to be one of the first days of a new deadly flu epidemic. The disease then goes on to kill most of the world’s population. The book follows a group of travelling performers, who, post-pandemic, travel round the remaining settlements putting on Shakespeare plays. Using multiple viewpoints, the stories cleverly interlink, and in The Prophet, Mantel has created a truly creepy villain. Lyrical and witty, Station Eleven gives an unusually optimistic view of life after a pandemic.
'Best novel. The big one . . . stands above all the others' - George R.R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones
Now an HBO Max original TV series
The New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction National Book Awards Finalist PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist
What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.
One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in…
Liveaboard sailor Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived when she blags her way into skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film. However, this means returning to the Shetland Islands, the place she fled as a teenager. When a corpse unexpectedly appears onboard the longship, she can…
Louise Welsh has written three novels about a pandemic called the Sweats – her Plague Times trilogy. This is the second book in the series. I particularly liked this one because its protagonist, Magnus, is a Scottish not-very-good stand-up comedian, and I too was once a not-very-good aspiring comic! After a series of unfortunate events, Magnus ends up in prison, where the disease is rife. Breaking out, he decides to make for his childhood home on Orkney, accompanied by fellow escapee Jeb. The fast-moving plot will keep you racing through this book.
Longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year
The second instalment in the thrilling new Plague Times trilogy from the author of A Lovely Way to Burn.
Magnus McFall was a comic on the brink of his big break when the world came to an end. Now, he is a man on the run and there is nothing to laugh about.
Thrown into unwilling partnership with an escaped convict, Magnus flees the desolation of London to make the long journey north, clinging to his hope that the sickness has not reached his family on their remote Scottish…
I read this book as background reading for writing my own virus-based novel, and it was an absolutely fascinating study of the response to a pandemic that took place almost exactly a century ago. It covers everything from the role of the First World War troops’ demobilisation on spreading the virus, to the impact of poverty on infection rates, to why young, fit people were the most likely to die of the illness. And, of course, why it was called Spanish Flu in the first place (spoiler alert: not because it came from Spain!)
Read the devastating story of the Spanish flu - the twentieth century's greatest killer - and discover what it can teach us about the current Covid-19 pandemic.
'Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story... Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past' Guardian
With a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history. And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote…
ALBA - Hidden Secrets is a tale of blood, broken dreams, and buried secrets.
When I was in high school, several young teenage boys died in car accidents, with tragic outcomes for all involved, and I wanted to honour their memory without specifically identifying them.
I’d never read a book quite like this one before. Set in 1348, the pandemic setting for this book is, of course, the Black Death. A gentlewoman, her servant, and a group of soldiers travel across England, only slowly becoming aware of how much danger they are in, as the disease lays waste to the population. Be warned, it is written in an Olde English dialect which takes a little while to get used to. It’s well worth sticking with it, though, because the characters are beautifully drawn, and you will be rooting for them every inch of the way, as they attempt to out-ride their fate.
'Inventive and original' The Times 'Fans of intelligent historical fiction will be enthralled' Hilary Mantel
Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Three journeys. One road.
England, 1348. A gentlewoman flees an odious arranged marriage, a proctor sets out for a monastery in Avignon and a young ploughman in search of freedom is on his way to volunteer with a company of archers. All come together on the road to Calais. In the other direction comes the Black Death, the plague that will wipe out half of the population of…
The Health of Strangers is the first book in a series of crime thrillers set in Edinburgh, against the background of a (fictional) pandemic. Written pre-Covid, the books accurately predict many of the civil liberties issues we’ve grappled with during the coronavirus crisis. The Health of Strangers introduces Mona and Bernard of the North Edinburgh Health Enforcement Team, who hunt you down if you miss your monthly compulsory health check.
Hampered by public indifference and limited resources, the team deals with corrupt politicians, religious cults, and illegal raves, and tries very, very, hard not to end up dead.
As a young doctor, Carl Holman has experienced the horrors of World War I and the death of his lover, a fellow officer. Back home after the War, he befriends a young jazz musician who he hopes will become a companion he can share his life with. But this is…
Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of…
