The End of October

One of my 2025 goals was to read more and I've hit the ground running with a book recommendation by my wife that she just finished, The End of October by Lawrence Wright. As a book about a novel coronavirus that takes hold on a global scale, I can't imagine a more prescient piece of writing given it was published in April of 2020. In fact it ended up being downright eerie how some of the topics felt so real including questions of origination in China, whether the virus at hand was lab-made or a rogue mutation, suspicions of Russian involvement, and even the tensions between economic pressures to keep businesses open against advisement of health officials.

I did find parts of the book quite difficult to grasp as it went very research heavy on viruses like Ebola and Spanish Flu and there was clearly a lot of work done to make sure the book spoke from an authentic standpoint with accuracy within medical and historical contexts. However the struggles to attempt to contain a pandemic (unsuccessfully) and the pain of how long it takes to develop vaccines for a situation like that felt all too familiar. It's not a book I would have wanted to read in 2020, that's for sure. But I love me a good dystopian end of the world scenario and this delivered.

I've set my goal for reading on a very modest one book per month but we're only one week in so it's quite possible I'll be updating that target as I go forward. Next on my list is Wool by Hugh Howie which is the basis for the Apple TV series Silo that I've been enjoying (and a recommendation from Brian Bennett).