Column by Chris Skaugset

For The Daily News

Fall has arrived. The days are getting shorter and the mornings crisp, and I’ve watched as the leaves on one of the maples outside of the library have begun to turn from green to a brilliant red. That’s the beauty of fall.

On the other hand, with fall comes cold and flu season. Nothing is making more headlines right now than the H1N1 virus and the continuing pandemic. Of course, history has been filled with the devastating effects of infectious diseases ranging from the bubonic plague and smallpox to yellow fever and AIDS, with direct comparisons and contrasts being drawn between today and the devastating Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918.

Devastating disease has not only affected individuals and communities but have often directed the course of history down very different paths. A number of different books have been written over the years about disease and its aftermath. Below are both fiction and non-fiction works that discuss many of the diseases, their effects and in some cases their demise. You can find these and many other titles at your local library.

• “Smallpox: the Death of a Disease” by D.A. Henderson. This is the fascinating tale of smallpox and the quest of science to eradicate it.

• “Polio: An American Story” by David Oshinsky. There have been many books written about polio and the search for a vaccine but this is a well-done synthesis of scientific, cultural, and social history of the 1950s.

• “The American Plague” by Molly Crosby. This is an excellent history of yellow fever and its effects throughout the world, but especially in our own country and the devastating outbreak in 1978.

• “The Great Influenza” by John Barry. Barry writes a wonderful book about the Spanish Influenza pandemic. He’s the author of the equally excellent “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and how it Changed America.”

• “The Epidemic” by Jonathan Engel. This is an excellent, concise history of the modern scourge of AIDS.

• “Miraculous Fever Tree” by Fiametta Rocco. This is an exciting and well-researched book about the history of malaria and the discovery of quinine as a treatment for it.

• “In the Wake of the Plague” by Norman Cantor. Noted classicist Cantor’s excellent history of the plague includes his idea that it was actually made up of two diseases: the bubonic plague and anthrax.

• “Plague” by Edward Marriott. Marriott has written an excellent history of the bubonic plague and a realistic look at its potential resurgence at any time and place.

• “Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio. This is the classic novel written in the 14th Century about the plague and its effects on not only individual people but society as a whole.

• “Journal of the Plague Year” by Daniel Defoe. Defoe, the author of “Robinson Crusoe” among other works, wrote this novel as an eyewitness report of the plague outbreak in London in 1664-65, some 60 years later.

• “The Stand” by Stephen King. This is perhaps King’s best book, with a fictitious superflu and the effects on society when nearly all humanity has been killed, all leading towards a final battle between good and evil.

• “Year of Wonders” by Geraldine Brooks. The award-winning author of “People of the Book” and “March” wrote a wonderful first novel about a year in one town suffering through an outbreak of the plague in 17th century England.

• “Doomsday Book” by Connie Willis. It’s a shame that Willis is not well-known outside of readers of science fiction. She is one of the best writers around and does a fantastic job in this book of describing what life was like during the bubonic plague.

Chris Skaugset is the director of the Longview Public Library. You can contact him at chris.skaugset@ci.longview.wa.us