Alone Together Now: 9 Books About Life During COVID-19

This is a nonfiction account of a doctor’s experiences working in a National Health Service (NHS) ICU ward during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and much of the book focuses on the events that occurred in March and April of 2020. It provides some great insights into the struggles that the NHS faced at the beginning of the pandemic, which only worsened as the case count climbed.

This is an illustrated compilation of ten personal accounts of people on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic during early 2020. These comics were initially developed for the NBC News website and the stories within range from a young London-based man whose two-week holiday stretched to four months to a medic desperately trying to help people injured during the Black Lives Matter protests.

This is a mixed anthology that includes poems, essays, and interviews from contributors all over the USA. The contributions in this book all fall under one of five main sections: What Now?, Grieve, Comfort, Connect, And Don’t Stop. Over 50 different authors all responded to the question of how the limited contact and uncertainty of this time is impacting individuals and the broader society we all belong to.

This is a personal diary made up of 45 murals that include Lee’s personal recollections of the first six months of the pandemic, starting from the first outbreak in Wuhan. It focuses heavily on March to June of 2020, but there is an epilogue that spans July to September. This diary includes news, witty observations and a little bit of comedy though it doesn’t shy away from the lives that have been lost or the social impact of the pandemic.

This is a collection of stories written by Canadian women about the way they have experienced and been affected by the pandemic, focusing on moments of leadership and resilience. This collection features stories from scientists, doctors, nurses, charity workers, parents, and PSWs (caregivers). This book focuses specifically on the struggles that women have been facing, including the often-unmentioned fact that women are often disproportionately responsible for the additional labor of house chores and childcare – both of which have substantially increased.

This is an international anthology that collects stories from writers and artists in dozens of countries, all answering the question of what life during the pandemic has looked like for them. The answers range from working grueling shifts in an emergency room to trying to soothe a child’s fears. This anthology is intended to be a snapshot that preserves the emotions of the present as a record for the future.

This is a graphic novel containing 60 short comics that cover the frighteningly large number of newsworthy events that occurred in 2020, including the heavily memed toilet paper shortage, the fear that the beginning of social distancing created, the strangeness of trying to virtually celebrate events, and the horror of not being able to see a loved one who is about to pass away from the virus.

This is a deliberately light look at the pandemic, written for anyone who needs to be able to focus on a silver lining amongst the clouds. This book is made up of three distinct sections: ‘Lockdown Personalities’, ‘Lockdown Activities’, and ‘Lockdown Lessons’. This is part memoir, part lockdown-specific self-help book that is determined to find the good things in the world as it currently is to act as a counter to the stress and worry.

This picture book is intended to be a resource for parents to help them teach their children about COVID-19 and what they need to do to keep safe. Teachers, psychologists, and a professor from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine consulted on the creation of this book which also goes into the emotions that children might currently be feeling and how to healthily cope with them.