Books on Swine Flu and other outbreaks in nonfiction and fiction

Seeking to stem panic over Swine Flu worries, President Barack Obama, governors and other public officials across the nation have been publicizing updates on precautionary measures they've taken to protect citizens. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal sent out his press release this weekend and stressed that the state hasn't had any cases of the deadly virus, but in Mexico, considered to be the epicenter of the outbreak, the government has put an emergency ban of all public gatherings into effect.

If you check out books on Swine Flu, you'll find few books focus specifically on Swine Flu. It's treated as another strain of influenza and addressed in books about flu and epidemics in general. Here are 15 of the more well known books about flu and other outbreaks broken up into fiction and nonfiction categories.

Nonfiction:

1. Flu By Gina Kolata, "the story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it" (video) In the book, Kolata asserts that the death of the brother in Thomas Wolfe's novel Look Homeward Angel is the true account of Wolfe's brother's death from the flu.
2. Purple Death: the mysterious flu of 1918, nonfiction for children by David Getz and Paul McCarty
3. The Devil's Flu: The World's Deadliest Influenza Epidemic and the Scientific Hunt for the Virus That Caused It by Pete Davies (about the 1918 epidemic)
4. The Epidemic that Never Was, policy making and the swine flu scare--a vintage book
5. Little Book of Pandemics by Peter Moore
6. Pandemic Influenza: Emergency Planning and Community PreparednessBy Jeffrey R. Ryan
7. The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston, a book about an outbreak of the Ebola virus in a Washington, D.C. suburb
8. Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It by Ken Alibek, Stephen Handelman
9. Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues by Paul Farmer
10. The Secret Life of Germs by Philip M. Tierno Jr., PhD

Fiction:

1. Isolation Ward by By Joshua Spanogle
2. Immunity by Lori Andrews
3. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
4. Outbreak by Robin Cook
5. Pandemic by Daniel Kalla

Here's one library's list of books about epidemics and pandemics. While people will naturally be more interested in information about Swine Flu and the U.S. has declared a national health emergency, President Obama says, the stories of flu are "not a cause for alarm," reports the AP.

Lagniappe

• Dr. Brobson Lutz of Orleans Medical Society talks to WWL TV about Swine Flu
• Victims of the Scourge, an 1879 New York Times article about yellow fever in New Orleans
• The Great Fever, PBS page on 1905 yellow fever outbreak in New Orleans
• The Great Influenza by New Orleans author John M. Barry.
• The Great Mortality, about the Black Death, greatest plague of history
• Naval History and the 1918 Epidemic
• Good Care: The Killer Flu Epidemic of 1918, Life Magazine photos
• The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-making on a Slippery Disease, book on policies
• The Great Pandemic of 1918, State by State
• U.S. Swine Flu Cases up to 40
• Swine Flu vs. Bird Flu and SARS
• Is it okay to eat pork?

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