Flu

The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It

By: Gina Kolata

Narrated by: Gina Kolata

Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Feeling feverish, tired, or achy? Listening to Gina Kolata's engrossing account of the 1918 Influenza epidemic is sure to give you the chills.

When we think of plagues, we think of AIDS, Ebola, anthrax spores, and, of course, the Black Death. Influenza never makes the list. But in 1918 the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the pandemic raged. More American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu than were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts in the frozen tundra succumbed to the flu in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out. If such a plague returned today, taking a comparable percentage of the U.S. population with it, 1.5 million Americans would die, which is more than the number killed in a single year by heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS, and Alzheimer's combined.

Scientists have recently discovered shards of the flu virus in human remains frozen in the Arctic tundra and in scraps of tissue preserved in a government warehouse. In Flu, Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of the lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. From Alaska to Norway, from the streets of Hong Kong to the corridors of the White House, Kolata tracks the race to recover the live pathogen and probes the fear that has impelled government policy. A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and considers what can be done to prevent it.

©1999 Gina Kolata

Incredible book, with valuable historical information

The information presented throughout this book is mind blowing. The author breaks down the scientific processes very well.
The descriptions of those affected by the flu is vivid, frightening, and heart breaking.
Now with the COVID-19 pandemic enveloping the world we need the lessons presented in this book now more than ever.
I highly recommend this book.

Fascinating story of science and mystery

I enjoyed the book a great deal. It was interesting that several expeditions were made to burial sites in permafrost areas. This flu was before ‘germ’ theory and long before microscopes powerful enough to see the virus. Terminology such as H1N1 is explained. For me it was the right balance of just in time science to understand their dilemma. Written in 1999 - it has lessons for today.

Excellent Book

As a medical professional, I was fasinated by this story. The story was sobering especially as we may be facing a similar panepidemic. I think the author provided excellent detail and good explainations. I enjoyed this book very much and would highly recommend it. The reader was very good. Although there may have been a slight list, it didn't detract at all from the experience.

Could not be more timely!

I read Gina in the NYT for many, many years and knew how terrific her reporting was, but did not know of this book until another member of our book club made it their selection for the month. Written in 2001 and at the time unable to explain why the 1918 flu was so deadly, I will now have to see if the explanation emerged in the last twenty years. May 25, 2020.

A great scientific murder mystery

A very intelligent and yet understandable history of the study of flu and its variation which are sometimes so lethal

There’s no pot at the end of this rainbow.

The author follows an interesting trail that doesn’t really reach a conclusion. In addition, she reads the book herself and she has a lisp, a trembly voice, and a midwestern accent that grated on me.

Flu

This work is quite facinating. Anyone interested in emerging diseases will enjoy it. The opening sequences describing the
death and destruction were very dramatic and attention grabbing. I would also recommend "Demon in the Freezer" if you
liked this work.

Interesting and now topical

I found this an interesting tale, both in the historical context of the 1918 pandemic, as well as the subsequent attempts up to the 1990s to figure out what made the virus so deadly. Being 9-10 years old now, the audiobook leaves the story hanging, but a quick search on the web will bring the listener up to date. Interestingly, a "less likely" hypothesis mentioned in the last few minutes of the audiobook about the cause of the 1918 virus's virulence in young adults has been recently shown to be the true in relation to the current 2009 pandemic, which I found fascinating.

The narrator is bearable, only because of the interesting content, but really a professional reader should have been used.

Pulled me in

Gina Kolata has an eye for detail, and a flair for the dramatic. From the opening sentence, this book pulled me in and had me waiting for more. I talked about it with friends, even before knowing what discoveries await. This book tells the story of the spread of the virus, the devastation it brought with it, and its removal from our collective conciousness. Perhaps we were too scared by the thought of its recurrence, or perhaps the reality of AIDS or the hype of Ebola and anthrax replaced it in our memories. Fortunately, 8 decades later, some researchers have started to look into it again with some success.

If there is anything disappointing about the book, it is how the Flu of 1918 continues to defy researchers. The book read like a detective story, and I expected it to wrap up nicely with a smoking gun and conviction. Alas reality defies fiction, but this book should be on your Wish List anyway.

Great story. Too long.

It's a really interesting story, but it does seem to go on and on rather that just providing the facts. It's written a little too much like a mystery rather than a non-fiction story for my taste. But then I often think books and articles are longer than they should be.