We are still in the middle of the pandemic. This book seems premature and adds no new knowledge.

A well rounded book on the pandemic.

I think this is best paired with Premonition: A Pandemic Story. Together, the read receives a deep understanding of local, national and international plans and failures related to the pandemic.

I enjoy the research and detail that Lawrence Wright puts in his books. This was my second book on the pandemic and it was very different from Michael Lewis's book and provided different types of information. I enjoyed Lewis's book more than this one but it was still a page turner. Wright try's to be objective in how he writes where Lewis is pretty clear on what he thinks of situations or actors in his books. So while Wrights book was drier, it was still very informative and I would recommend it.

I never write reviews, but I was disappointed by this book, I think mostly because The Looming Tower was SO good and incredibly thorough. I wish an author with this much talent had also taken their time with this subject. It could’ve been a great book with his writing abilities, but it just wasn’t IMO. Also, leaving out Dr. Kariko when talking about the scientists behind the creation of the RNA vaccine is a goddamn shame. Everyone should read about her if they want the actual story behind their invention.

If you are an adult in the United States, you should read this book. Wright does an excellent job of laying out the facts of the pandemic in a narrative style that is engaging but also terrifying. This is a time I will never forget.

So many things covered from the past 18 months... Our mistakes and our successes. Not just the pandemic, but also some of the challenges with the police force (not all of them).

I'm sure there will be many works written in the time ahead that chronicle the ins and outs of the 2020 coronavirus outbreak and analyze the responses taken by various government leaders. This one, specifically focusing on the U.S. experience, is a strong start, although we'll have to wait and see if it holds up as a classic of its kind. But I'm impressed with how thoroughly author Lawrence Wright synthesizes and presents his material, including behind-the-scenes personality clashes and wrenching details of the early days that I had already forgotten a mere year-and-a-half later. While there's little here that would be truly new for our contemporary audience who lived through and followed the pandemic as it unfolded, it's helpful to read an account like this that takes stock from a slight distance to craft a cohesive narrative.

I also appreciate the writer's clarity on which policy actions did or did not successfully address the spread of the virus and whose judgment proved smart or prone to error on that front. It's not a partisan hit job: a few Democrats get faulted, and certain decisions made by the Trump administration are praised. But Wright doesn't pull his punches either in laying the majority of the blame for catastrophic mismanagement squarely on the former president. His supporters won't like it, and some readers may feel that a journalist should avoid taking sides in this fashion, but the facts are the facts, and honest reporting can't afford to feign neutrality in the wake of so much death.

I haven't yet read this author's medical thriller novel The End of October, which was greeted with astonishment in April 2020 for accurately predicting in his fictional pathogen the actual progression of the COVID-19 crisis. The present title addresses that in one of its rare memoir sections, explaining how all he did was listen to experts, research the existing models, and form a story out of what they were warning was a dire eventuality. Those voices weren't listened to enough by the people in power, but the background knowledge they provided has now helped Wright construct this second and very different book as well.

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Lawrence Wright is such a good writer. Even though it might seem like a liberal slant, he gets the details accuracy of the information and presents it in a digestible format. The book is really not just COVID, but it's handling of George Floyd, Trump's insurrection and mismanagement of government. This was a very good synopsis of 2020 and a little of 2019 and 2021.