Have we been here before?

[River Tyne Lass]

I have recently come across a review of a novel with a pandemic theme called 'The Pull of Stars' by Emma Donoghue.  It is set 1918 in a Dublin understaffed city hospital when the flu pandemic was causing public terror.  Nurse Julia Power has a fight on her hands to try to save the lives of the quarantined mothers and their unborn babies when two outsiders arrive into her 'regimented world' to help.  One is Doctor Kathleen Lynn who is on the run from the police.  The story was apparently inspired by this real life woman who had been a pioneering doctor and Sinn Fein activist.  The other is a young volunteer called Bridie Sweeney.  The story is told over three intense days wherein the women change each others lives in unexpected ways. 

[Romilly]

Thanks for the pointers Greensleeves:-)
Inferno is I think, one of the trilogy of Dan Brown films? The first one was the Da Vinci Code, - I can’t remember the middle one!

We’ve just finished watching all 3 series of ‘Broadchurch’, - I feel lost now!

Romilly.

The film I couldn’t remember is ‘Angels and Demons’ from a book by Dan Brown.

Romilly.

[jillruss]

How disappointing! I thought this would be a thread about reincarnation....

[jim234j]

I had this book on my bookshelf and had never read it but I recently did and found it very interesting on describing the black plague and how different areas of Europe reacted to i.

The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe - Robert Steven Gottfried

[ThrelfallYorky]

All this just goes to prove, there's nothing new under the sun!

[josey]

Another good book on the same topic is The Return of the Black Death by Susan Scott & Christopher Duncan. The blurb states that the authors'trace the origins of the ...disease, through possible outbreaks in classical times back to its animal hosts in Africa'. The Black Death was haemorrhagic plague, not bubonic. I've read it twice because it has some interesting theories [and I keep forgetting the details  ].

[Greensleeves]

'A Distant Mirror ; The Calamitous 14th century' by Barbara Tuchman is an interesting read, covering the disasters of plague and famine in those times.  Not comfortable reading, but very informative.

[a chesters]

In 1977, there was a short story called The Screwfly Solution"

The basic premise was that aliens wanted the Earth, and the best way to get it nice and cleanly, without "dirtying" their hands was to  infect the women in such a way that they did not like their men, to the extent of eliminating the men.

A little more drastic that the Covid 19, but...............