Non-fiction books about the COVID-19 pandemic

[mango]

Two books have recently been published in Swedish about the covid-19 pandemic.

(I haven't yet read them, so I'm posting this only for information, not a recommendation.)

Filosofi och pandemi - Åke Gafvelin and Lapo Lappin
https://artos.se/bok/filosofi-och-pandemi/

About philosophy and the pandemic, philosophical questions on healthcare, ethics and truth.

Covid-19 raises philosophical questions. Who will get the last respirator? What strategy should we adopt? Are our moral and political beliefs a matter of taste or objects of discussion? Is there an objective reality or do corona deniers have the right to their own truth? What is your truth?

During the corona year 2020, the interview series The Metaphysical Laboratory gathered eleven of Sweden's most profiled philosophers to investigate these issues in the time of the pandemic. Philosophy and Pandemic present their contributions in a thematic order and act as mediators in an extended dialogue between them.

Some of the interviews (in Swedish) are also available to listen to as a podcast ("Metafysiska Laboratoriet") and to watch on YouTube.

So far I've only listened to the interview with Swedish philosopher and author Åsa Wikforss, and it was very interesting, would recommend. (I absolutely love her book Alternativa Fakta.)



Flocken - Johan Anderberg
https://www.albertbonniersforlag.se/bocker/278063/flocken/

"With as many infected people as there are now in Sweden, the spread of infection will happen. Our society is not very different from Italy, or for that matter China, so why should it not spread among us?”

It is Friday, March 6, 2020. The realization that Covid-19 is not an ordinary infection is starting to spread, but Sweden is passive and Anders Tegnell's email inbox is filled with questions and advice. At that moment, the contours begin to be discerned on Sweden's later controversial plan to meet the virus.

In Johan Anderberg's story, we follow the game around Sweden's strategy for a year during the Corona pandemic; how the word herd immunity is transformed from an obscure technical term into one of the most charged words of our time, and how how the whole world started watching Sweden.

Review of Flocken by Lapo Lappin:
Bakom kulisserna till Sveriges coronastrategi
https://ergo.nu/bok/20210503-bakom-kulisserna-till-sveriges-coronastrategi

I hope both will be available as e-books through my local library soon. Looking forward to reading them.

 

[mango]

A non-fiction book about living with long covid, in Swedish. Published in March, 2023.

Jag är inte här, det här händer inte
Annah Björk

Annah has always said yes to everything. She is a hard-working freelance journalist, healthy and strong. At Christmas 2020, she falls ill with COVID-19. A year later, she still has trouble getting out of bed.

"I'm not here, this isn't happening" is a personal account of being stuck in post-covid. It is a story of fever and enormous fatigue, of frustration and despair at seeing everything you've been building up fall apart. Who are you when you can no longer work, can't be a mum, a partner or a friend? While she is ill, Annah's family is experiencing unimaginable grief. How do you support your loved ones when you can barely carry yourself? And how do you recover from something that even the doctors doctors call a mystery?