The Premonition

A Pandemic Story

By: Michael Lewis

Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo

Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about.

Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The characters you will meet in this audiobook are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A 13-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu...everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.

Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Michael Lewis (P)2021 Audible, Inc.

A very interesting book

Fascinating book, the narration drove me crazy, the narrators voice hugged me. At one point I almost stopped listening to it.

Terrible narrator, great story!

I am going to have to buy this book in some Kindle format and read it because the narrator sucks to the point that it distracts you from the content.

Great book, awful narration

This true story reads like fiction and I couldn’t stop listening. The narration sounds like a computerized voice and the voice has a weird inflection. For me it was awful to listen to. I wish I could have listened to it read by a different voice

Important message about national health distinction

This is an important book on how poorly the country responded to the COVID pandemic. The utter failure of the CDC and the politicalization of local state and national health care management, focus and effectiveness. Unfortunately the last third of the book rambles and fails to provide a succinct summary of specifically what was wrong, what was right and how we proceed from here.

Compelling and Inspiring

I couldn't put this down. it was so fascinating to hear about the people who took it upon themselves to figure out about public health crises, including COVID, as I write this, often in the face of resistance from the CDC and other government agencies you would think we're having them. I'm so grateful they found each other to make headway in our current crisis. we have to do better at taking politics out of public health and learning from COVID so we can do better with the next pandemic, and there will be a next one.

Preminition

Great story. Everyone should read this! Find out the truth behind the CDC and the government.

Love the book. Hate the reader

In case you hate the person who read this book as I did don’t give up as it’s a wonderful story as only Michael Lewis can do

Great book and well narrated

Michael Lewis does a good job of shining a light on some of the best and least recognized among. It’s inspirational to learn about a handful of blue-flame thinking people serving in government roles and working for the public good. Adenrele Ojo, does an excellent job narrating the book, and I would recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about what we’ve just been passing through. And we’re not even out the other side yet. Enjoy!

Great book, bad performance

With all of the great audiobook performers, I was disappointed by the choice here. The woman had a sort of “singsong” delivery that detracted from the book. Otherwise, an amazing (and scary) story of how we ended up in this pandemic mess. Could not stop the virus, but our government was a spectacular failure at how it dealt (or didn’t). And the failure started way before CIVID hit.

Lewis is a master story teller

Michael Lewis once again masterfully weaves together his overarching story through the stories of the individuals that saw the pandemic coming and at great personal and professional risk attempted to warn and contain the pandemic.