NPR

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Pandemics In 'The End Of October'

Journalist Lawrence Wright learned a lot about pandemics for his new thriller — and he packs it all into sometimes-clunky dialogue. But right now, all that information is exactly what readers want.
Source: Knopf

In early March, when everything was teetering from slightly weird to very weird, I sought out a strange form of comfort: Station Eleven, the Emily St. John Mandel novel about a pandemic that kills 99 percent of the earth's population.

The plot was oddly calming as the world began to slowly shut down, and the airplanes I traveled from campaign event to campaign event suddenly became far less crowded and far more tense.

Once our own real-life pandemic took full hold, I found myself unable to read.

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