Simon Heffer
Viral News
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
By Laura Spinney
Jonathan Cape 332pp £20 order from our bookshop
Folk memory of the Spanish flu, which at the end of the Great War wiped out many of those who survived the conflict and many more who had not been near the front line, lived on in families for decades afterwards. In mine it centred on Uncle Fred Shaw, who married Aunt Betty in 1916 and, after a honeymoon of a few days, headed back to France, where he was serving with the Royal Flying Corps. Shot down almost immediately, he was hugely fortunate to survive the crash, but he was captured by the Germans and detained in a prisoner of war camp near Bonn. Before he could be sent home he caught the flu and died there at the start of 1919.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'To me, Elmore Leonard is as comforting in extremity as Pym, and as safe, in the last resort, as Wodehouse. The guys with the best lines are going to come out the other side; the dumb fucks are going to get it in the head or chest.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-spoonful-of-elmore
'As we read, we know that in a short time the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and colour television will sweep that age over the balustrade and into the sea, but for now everyone is happy.'
Simon Baker is charmed by Graham Swift's new novel, 'Here We Are'.
http://ow.ly/uDL050ylh80
'As science moves forward ... are we entering an era where sex is for leisure and IVF is for creating the perfect child?'
@MGilmore121 takes a look at the future of IVF in her review of @RobertKlitzman's 'Designing Babies'.
http://ow.ly/xuJY50ybNJa