Apocalyptic fiction

The Children of Men. A terrific book from the pen of someone you'd not expect...P.D James. 

Camus' The Plague is a classic and a recommended reading any day. But the novel would have been an even better read before the lockdown and pandemic - simply because - it tells you what to expect. The restrictions the City of Oran and its people face are recently seen and gone through. It might not be the best fit if a person is trying to move away from the pandemic hangover. I'd rather recommend you look at the summary of Station Eleven; it's a good novel and post-apocalyptic fiction - a better fit IMO. 

Be careful out there: https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/watch-knife-wielding-squirrel-spotted-in-toronto

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. Not fiction per se, more an essay on our impact on the natural world, and analysis of the effect our disappearance would have. 

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis - time traveler ends up stuck in Black Death Europe

Ken Follett World Without End is a decent romp through The Black Death too (helps if you've read Pillars of the Earth). 

The Death of Grass by John Christopher is wonderfully bleak considering the time it was written. Tens of millions die due to a Chinese virus that wipes out grain and rice crops. Govts do drastic things and cosy middle class types turn properly barbaric.

The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle - my primary school teacher decided to read that to the class. I was about 9. Billions die. Stuck with me ever since. 

Of Wyndham's work I think The Kraken Wakes is the best cosy apocalypse

For something a little more literary anything from J G Ballard's early works (The Drowned World, The Burning World, The Crystal World, High Rise are all great)

I've got a soft spot for "A Canticle for Liebowitz" but that's more post-apocalypse.

Oh... and how could I forget. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

 A Kentish classic.

Doris Lessing's 'Memoirs of a survivor' should perk you up in these dark times.

Me... I'll be watching reruns of Columbo and Cheers thank you.

You want apocalyptic fiction?

Try the The Daily Mail.

Looks like The Grauniad has picked up on this too: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/15/books-to-read-while-quarantined-coronavirus

Cormac MacCarthy's 'The Road'. Better than the movie, so bleak he makes the roads seem almost as dangerous as they currently are!  Margaret Atwood's 'Oryx and Crake' trilogy are worth a butchers and try 'A Canticle for Leibovitz' by Walter Miller for a somewhat different take - he explores a regressed society hundreds of years after cataclysm, trying to make sense of the junk and random information left over from our world. 

Most of the stuff by John Wyndham is fairly apocalyptic. I'd recommend The Kraken Wakes for a good rising sea level kind of apocalyse or The Chrysalids for a post-apocalyptic world. Of course, Day of the Triffids is a good breakdown of society jaunt.

I got The Knowledge out from my local library, it was alright.

I would recommend libraries, I was getting a few books out of the main Reading library, I think with the ones I had already had taken out I got up to eleven, I expected the machine to say TOO MANY!, it never happened, apparently I can take out twenty.  That's a lot of reading and knowledge (I tend to do non-fiction).  Berkshire do 3 weeks, which I have never managed to get my head around (it was definiitely 4 in Hampshire and in Birmingham, I think) but they will email you when almost due (mostly).  You just pick up what might be interesting, give it a go and if not, very little worry and cost.  And providing no one has put a hold/order on a book, you can renew up to 5 times.

I did do one about Spanish Flu a couple of monts ago, personal experiences and some general stuff.

Pandemic 1918 : the story of the deadliest influenza in history.

Catharine Arnold 

And several years back I read

Spillover : animal infections and the next human pandemic

David Quammen

Which was very interesting and not quite as sensasionalist as The Hot Zone.

Fever Dreams by Dean Koontz just to be topical. It concerns Wuhan 400