A Journal of the Plague Year, Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London

A fascinating look at London in 1665, when the bubonic plague swept through the city. Reading it in New York City during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic was especially enlightening, as one can see so many similarities. Hoarding supplies, fleeing the cities for country homes, self-isolation, all of these things were happening in the London pandemic over 300 years ago. There is even the “double-peak” we hear so much about today, where cases start to go on the decline, quarantine restrictions are lifted so people start mingling again, and we see a second wave of infections, albeit not quite as high as the first.

Highly recommended, especially if you want to see how human behavior hasn't changed in the intervening three-and-a-half centuries.

This is written as a memoir but (this took me awhile to realize) it's not REALLY a memoir. It's a fictionalized account based on firsthand reports.

It was interesting to read just because so many bits were hauntingly familiar – social distancing, asymptomatic spread, people downplaying the virus early on, locking infected families in their houses, the plague disproportionately affecting the working poor (who couldn't afford to not go to work or stock up on a month's worth of food)... etc. There's something kind of comforting about the knowledge that we as a society have been in situations like this before.

However it has no coherent structure and is rambling and full of pointless repetitions and digressions... I guess I can't blame the guy ‘cause he hadn't yet invented the novel, I mean, he tried... still it was in practice kind of tedious to read.