{"id":39455,"date":"2021-08-23T06:30:13","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T18:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=39455"},"modified":"2021-08-22T23:26:23","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T11:26:23","slug":"lockdown-reprised-plus-some-pandemic-themed-reads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2021\/08\/23\/lockdown-reprised-plus-some-pandemic-themed-reads\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockdown Reprised — Plus Some Pandemic-Themed Reads"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Covid lockdown or the writing life — the shutters look much the same.<\/p><\/div>\n

Well, here we are again: back in level 4 lockdown approximately 15 months after we exited it in 2020, with the Covid-19 Delta strain\u2014not unlike a malevolent genie\u2014out of its bottle and \u2018out there\u2019 in our NZ community. :-\/<\/p>\n

In some ways, given Delta\u2019s degree of infectiousness (I think<\/em> that\u2019s a word) and the travel bubble with Australia, its arrival in the NZ community was probably only a matter of when, not if.<\/p>\n

Having watched the degree of spread in NSW, in particular, I\u2019m fully on board with the government\u2019s decision to go straight to Level 4, particularly given NZ’s only in the early stages of the vaccine rollout.<\/p>\n

As mentioned previously, the writing life is naturally self-isolating<\/strong><\/a>, so Level 4 means very little change in the day-to-day. Beyond, that is, seeing far fewer people around, when I look out the writing window.<\/p>\n

For those for whom lockdown and staying closer to home\u00a0 means battening down the hatches with a good book, I thought I’d share a few suggestions for pandemic-themed reads:<\/p>\n

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks<\/em><\/p>\n

The Plague <\/em>by Albert Camus<\/p>\n

The Andromeda Strain<\/em> by Michael Crichton<\/p>\n

Ammonite <\/em>by Nicola Griffiths<\/p>\n

The Dog Stars<\/em> by Peter Heller<\/p>\n

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Havoc<\/em> by Jane Higgins<\/p>\n

The Animals In That Country<\/em> by Laura Jean McKay<\/p>\n

Station Eleven<\/em> by Emily St John Mandel<\/p>\n

Last Song Before Night<\/em> by Ilana C Myer (the pandemic is more in the background, but it\u2019s still a theme)<\/p>\n

Doomsday Book<\/em> by Connie Willis<\/p>\n

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Well, here we are again: back in level 4 lockdown approximately 15 months after we exited it in 2020, with the Covid-19 Delta strain\u2014not unlike a malevolent genie\u2014out of its bottle and \u2018out there\u2019 in our NZ community. :-\/ In some ways, given Delta\u2019s degree of infectiousness (I think that\u2019s a word) and the travel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-recommended-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39455"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39464,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39455\/revisions\/39464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}