A coronavirus reading list
Little Dorrit (US link), an excellent confinement novel (not just Mr Dorrit). 'Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.'
Love in the Time of Cholera (US link). Self-recommending for a re-read under any circumstances. 'It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.'
In a time of pestilence. Plague poem from 1593. 'The world uncertain is.'
Wolf Hall (US link). Tragic story about the sweating sickness, among other things. 'So now get up.'
A Distant Mirror (US link). This has been on my list for a while. The Stoics tell us to prepare for the worst... 'Formidable and grand on a hilltop in Picardy, the five-towered castle of Coucy dominated the approach to Paris from the north, but whether as guardian or challenger of the monarchy in the capital was an open question.'
What about The Mandibles, by Lionel Shriver or The Handmaid’s Tale? Kafka anyone? If stagflation is coming back should we crack out Jonathan Coe?
When the theatres re-open, will we also see productions of Moliere satirising whichever medical theories and journalism turn out to have been bogus? A Tartuffe of behavioural science?
Note that this list is designed to help you imagine life under very different conditions. The mistake many people are making is to think about how the world will revert to the old model. It will not.