Joseph Osmundson

This was so entirely up my alley, I am big into essays that blend medicine and history and social science. I am PARTICULARLY interested in essays that do this around AIDS, and then add trying that all into the current COVID pandemic and of course I was going to need to read this.

This essay collection goes a lot of different paces. If you just want something that is going to discuss COVID in relation to other viral pandemics, this book may stress you out. But if you want something to also think about how communities gather and define themselves, how activism works (and sometimes doesn't) in fighting a pandemic, about the function of writing, both private and public, when going through extraordinary times, about personal relationships, about sex, about employment, about risk, then this might be the book for you.

I read this more or less an essay at a time, taking breaks in between. Certainly some essays worked better for me than others, but I was always interested in what Osmundson had to say.… (more)