Pandemics and Epidemics (nonfiction)
1. 
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
by:
David Quammen
4.42 avg rating — 20,025 ratings 2. 
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by:
John M. Barry
3.98 avg rating — 42,021 ratings 3. 
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
by:
Randy Shilts
4.39 avg rating — 28,863 ratings 4. 
Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
by:
Jennifer Wright
4.23 avg rating — 13,612 ratings 5. 
Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
by:
Sonia Shah
4.07 avg rating — 4,009 ratings 6. 
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance
by:
Laurie Garrett
4.21 avg rating — 10,688 ratings 7. 
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
by:
Steven Johnson
3.89 avg rating — 55,252 ratings 
9. 
The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History 3.91 avg rating — 6,647 ratings
10. 
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World
by:
Laura Spinney
3.91 avg rating — 7,931 ratings 
11. 
The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread - and Why They Stop
by:
Adam Kucharski
3.86 avg rating — 2,254 ratings 13. 
Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
by:
Sam Quinones
4.23 avg rating — 31,638 ratings 
16. 
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
by:
Richard Preston
4.16 avg rating — 119,586 ratings 17. 
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
by:
Bill Wasik
3.72 avg rating — 11,395 ratings 
19. 
Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague
by:
David K. Randall
4.06 avg rating — 1,862 ratings 20. 
Flu: The Story Of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It
by:
Gina Kolata
3.91 avg rating — 7,614 ratings 
22. 
23. 
Plagued: Pandemics from the Black Death to Covid-19 and Beyond
by:
John Froude
3.94 avg rating — 125 ratings 23. 
Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History
by:
Paul Farmer
4.04 avg rating — 1,199 ratings 
27. 
Fever Season: The Story of a Terrifying Epidemic and the People Who Saved a City
by:
Jeanette Keith
3.73 avg rating — 214 ratings 28. 
Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live 4.01 avg rating — 2,789 ratings
29. 
The Pandemic Century: A History of Global Contagion from the Spanish Flu to Covid-19
by:
Mark Honigsbaum
3.88 avg rating — 1,336 ratings 
33. 
35. 
Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service
by:
Mark Pendergrast
3.70 avg rating — 497 ratings 
35. 
35. 
Rats, Lice, and History: A Chronicle of Pestilence and Plagues
by:
Hans Zinsser
4.02 avg rating — 566 ratings 39. 
The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic
by:
Gay Salisbury
4.19 avg rating — 3,531 ratings 39. 
Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic
by:
Scott Gottlieb
4.07 avg rating — 1,135 ratings 
43. 
Beating Back the Devil: On the Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service
by:
Maryn McKenna
3.94 avg rating — 2,148 ratings 43. 
Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History
by:
Yasmeen Abutaleb
4.31 avg rating — 1,531 ratings 46. 
The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics
by:
Stephen Coss
3.73 avg rating — 782 ratings 46. 
How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS
by:
David France
4.44 avg rating — 4,225 ratings 48. 
Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
by:
Robert Sullivan
3.72 avg rating — 4,486 ratings 48. 
Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus
by:
David Quammen
4.20 avg rating — 2,001 ratings 
50. 
American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic
by:
Nancy K. Bristow
3.63 avg rating — 259 ratings 52. 
53. 
Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science
by:
Peter J. Hotez
3.76 avg rating — 212 ratings 54. 
Together in a Sudden Strangeness: America's Poets Respond to the Pandemic
by:
Alice Quinn
3.79 avg rating — 398 ratings 55. 
56. 
The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
by:
Sonia Shah
3.90 avg rating — 1,490 ratings 56. 
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond
by:
Matthew Fox
4.18 avg rating — 247 ratings 58. 
Germs, Genes, & Civilization: How Epidemics Shaped Who We Are Today (Ft Press Science Series)
by:
David P. Clark
3.73 avg rating — 1,028 ratings 58. 
Life on the Line: Young Doctors Come of Age in a Pandemic
by:
Emma Goldberg
3.86 avg rating — 671 ratings 60. 
The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco
by:
Marilyn Chase
3.83 avg rating — 1,102 ratings 60. 
The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It 3.67 avg rating — 455 ratings
62. 
62. 
The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself
by:
Richard D. Wolff
3.93 avg rating — 151 ratings 
65. 
After the Black Death: A Social History of Early Modern Europe
by:
George Huppert
3.55 avg rating — 195 ratings 66. 
In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made
by:
Norman F. Cantor
3.41 avg rating — 5,388 ratings 
69. 
And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers from Around the World on the Covid-19 Pandemic
by:
Ilan Stavans
3.60 avg rating — 93 ratings 
70. 
The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris
by:
Mark Honigsbaum
3.88 avg rating — 1,336 ratings 
74. 
75. 
75. 
The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Dangers
by:
Ali S. Khan
4.01 avg rating — 1,872 ratings 
79. 
When Germs Travel: Six major epidemics that have invaded America since 1900 and the fears they have unleashed
by:
Howard Markel
3.90 avg rating — 355 ratings 79. 
Stress Pandemic: 9 Natural Steps to Break the Cycle of Stress & Thrive
by:
Paul Huljich
3.63 avg rating — 110 ratings 81. 
Quarantine!: East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892
by:
Howard Markel
3.72 avg rating — 32 ratings 81. 
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
by:
David Quammen
4.42 avg rating — 20,025 ratings 83. 
Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
by:
Dr Jeremy Brown
3.98 avg rating — 1,774 ratings 83. 
Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come
by:
Richard Preston
4.42 avg rating — 7,444 ratings 85. 
Flu Pandemic of 2018-2019: How Can We Learn From the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 and Prepare for What’s Coming
by:
D.W. Graeme
4.27 avg rating — 48 ratings 
88. 
Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541-750
by:
Lester K. Little
3.90 avg rating — 49 ratings 
90. 
Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease
by:
Wendy Orent
3.69 avg rating — 140 ratings 90. 
The Useful Idiot: How Donald Trump Killed the Republican Party with Racism and the Rest of Us with Coronavirus
by:
S.V. Date
4.41 avg rating — 372 ratings 92. 
Ship of Death: A Voyage That Changed the Atlantic World
by:
Billy G. Smith
3.94 avg rating — 54 ratings 92. 
Economics in One Virus: An Introduction to Economic Reasoning through COVID-19
by:
Ryan A. Bourne
3.86 avg rating — 128 ratings 94. 
The Atlas of Disease: Mapping Deadly Epidemics and Contagion from the Plague to the Zika Virus
by:
Sandra Hempel
3.92 avg rating — 271 ratings 
96. 
98. 
Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling Hot Viruses Around the World
by:
C.J. Peters
3.98 avg rating — 2,696 ratings 
99. 
The Panic Virus: Fear, Myth and the Vaccination Debate
by:
Seth Mnookin
4.07 avg rating — 5,763 ratings