From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter, a powerful and cathartic portrait of a country grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic—from feeling afraid and overwhelmed to extraordinary resilient—told through voices of people from all across America The Covid-19 pandemic was a world-shattering event, affecting everyone in the nation. From its first ominous stirrings, renowned journalist Eli Saslow began interviewing a cross-section of Americans to capture their experiences in real time: An exhausted and anguished EMT risking his life in New York City; a grocery store owner feeding his neighborhood for free in locked-down New Orleans; an overwhelmed coroner in Georgia; a Maryland restaurateur forced to close his family business after forty-six years; an Arizona teacher wrestling with her fears and her obligations to her students; rural citizens adamant that the entire pandemic is a hoax, and retail workers attacked for asking customers to wear masks; patients struggling to breathe and doctors desperately trying to save them. Through Saslow's masterful, empathetic interviewing, we are given a kaleidoscopic picture of a people dealing with the unimaginable. These deeply personal accounts constitute a crucial, heartbreaking record of the sweep of experiences during this troubled time, and show us America from its worst and to its resilient best.

Unheard Voices of the Pandemic reveals through first-person narratives what happened the year the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the United States. The seventeen stories included in this collection speak to the precarity, uncertainty, and injustice of that year, but also to bravery, solidarity, and generosity. Although the shadow cast by the COVID-19 pandemic is long, the insights gleaned through listening can last longer.

An eye-opening anthology from the bestselling editor of Histories of Nations, exploring how people around the globe have suffered and survived during plague and pandemic, from the ancient world to the present. Plague, pestilence, and pandemics have been a part of the human story from the beginning and have been reflected in art and writing at every turn. Humankind has always struggled with illness; and the experiences of different cities and countries have been compared and connected for thousands of years. Many great authors have published their eyewitness accounts and survivor stories of the great contagions of the past. When the great Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta visited Damascus in 1348 during the great plague, which went on to kill half of the population, he wrote about everything he saw. He reported, "God lightened their affliction; for the number of deaths in a single day at Damascus did not attain 2,000, while in Cairo it reached the figure of 24,000 a day." From the plagues of ancient Egypt recorded in Genesis to those like the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages, and from the Spanish flu of 1918 to the Covid-19 pandemic in our own century, this anthology contains fascinating accounts. Editor Peter Furtado places the human experience at the center of these stories, understanding that the way people have responded to disease crises over the centuries holds up a mirror to our own actions and experiences. Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic includes writing from around the world and highlights the shared emotional responses to pandemics: from rage, despair, dark humor, and heartbreak, to finally, hope that it may all be over. By connecting these moments in history, this book places our own reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic within the longer human story.

In this timely, insightful, and darkly funny investigation, the acclaimed author of Against Love asks: what does living in dystopic times do to our ability to love each other and the world? COVID-19 has produced new taxonomies of love, intimacy, and vulnerability. Will its cultural afterlife be as lasting as that of HIV, which reshaped consciousness about sex and love even after AIDS itself had been beaten back by medical science? Will COVID end up making us more relationally conservative, as some think HIV did within gay culture? Will it send us fleeing into emotional silos or coupled cocoons, despite the fact that, pre-COVID, domestic coupledom had been steadily losing fans? Just as COVID revealed our nation to itself, so did it hold a mirror up to our relationships. In Love in the Time of Contagion, Laura Kipnis weaves (often hilariously) her own (ambivalent) coupled lockdown experiences together with those of others and sets them against a larger backdrop: the politics of the virus, economic disparities, changing gender relations, and the ongoing institutional crack-ups prompted by #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, mapping their effects on the everyday routines and occasional solaces of love and sex.

"Different voices in New World Coming tell powerful stories of loss and difficulty plus messages of hope and promise for all as we seek a healing future for the earth and each other." —REGINA LOPEZ-WHITESKUNK (Ute Mountain Ute), contributor to Edge of Morning: Native Voices Speak for the Bears Ears New World Coming documents the distinct moment through personal narratives and intergenerational imaginings of a just, healthy, and equitable future. Writers reflect on what movements for justice and liberation can learn from the response to COVID–19, uprisings for Black lives, and climate crisis, through essays and poems that inspire and generate the change we need to survive and thrive. ALASTAIR LEE BITSÓÍ (Diné) is a public health and environmental writer from the Navajo Nation. He is an award–winning news reporter for the Navajo Times, and served as communications director for the Indigenous–led land conservation nonprofit, Utah Diné Bikéyah, which continues advocacy for protection and restoration of Bears Ears National Monument. His newly launched consulting business, Near the Water Communications and Media Group, provides public health messaging services for organizations. He holds a master's degree in public health from New York University College of Global Public Health, and is an alumnus of Gonzaga University. BROOKE LARSEN is a writer and community organizer. She has an MA in Environmental Humanities from the University of Utah and was the recipient of the High Country News Bell Prize for emerging writers. Brooke has spent the past decade organizing with the climate justice movement. She co–founded Uplift, a youth–led organization for climate justice in the Southwest, and was a youth delegate to the UN Climate Change Conference in 2016 with SustainUS. Brooke resides and grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, ancestral land of the Goshute, Shoshone, and Ute people.

“Prepare for major goosebumps.” —PopSugar “The must-have for any horror fan.” —Marie Claire An eerie horror debut about a little boy who recovers from a mysterious illness and confronts the shadowy forces behind his new imaginary friend... Kids have imaginary friends. Rachel knows this. So when her young son, Billy, miraculously recovers from a mysterious flu that has proven fatal for many, she thinks nothing of Delfy, his new invisible friend. After all, her family is healthy and that’s all that matters. But soon Delfy is telling Billy what to do, and the boy is acting up and lashing out in ways he never has before. And Billy isn’t the only kid suddenly hearing voices.... Rachel can’t shake the feeling that this is all tied up with the flu, and something—or someone—far more sinister is at play. As rising tensions threaten to tear her family apart, she clings to one purpose: to protect her children at any cost—even from themselves. We Hear Voices is a gripping near-future horror novel that tests the fragility of family and the terrifying gray area between fear and love.

"Young People of the Pandemic" is an intimate glimpse into the psyche of American youth living through the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring a diverse group of young writers from across the country, this anthology illustrates what it is to be a member of Gen Z in a divided country attempting to conquer the greatest crises of our time.With resilience, bravery, wisdom, honesty, and humor, they tell their stories, not only as a form of emotional expression but also as an exploration into their journeys as they navigate uncertainty and turbulence. Throughout these stories, poems, and anecdotes there is hope on every page, with each piece serving as an example of creative courage. A collection both heartbreaking and heartwarming, "Young People of the Pandemic" captures voices that will be remembered throughout history.