Medical dramas set the stage for this season of books, with a look back at COVID through the eyes of a surgeon, a deep dive into Philadelphia’s 18th-century quarantine experiment, and a philosophical query about the benefits of opt-in reproduction. Plus, a book of poetry and prose centered on the appearances of Brood X, and a chronicle of the ancient wisdom of Celtic Druids.

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The Sky Was Falling: A Young Surgeon’s Story of Bravery, Survival, and Hope 

By Cornelia Griggs ’01
Gallery Books, 2024

“For many of us, the experience of the peak pandemic was eerily incongruous. We were sequestered in our quiet homes but reminded of the devastation by the never-ending ping of news alerts. Dr. Cornelia Griggs’s experience was altogether different. A pediatric surgery fellow in New York City, she was entering the final victory lap at the end of nine grueling years of training. … Then came COVID-19. Initially, Griggs encouraged her friends and family not to panic. However, as mysterious cases began showing up in the hospital, and then hospital supplies started disappearing from shelves, she couldn’t hold back the feeling that this was going to be worse than she had thought. … The Sky Was Falling is her day-to-day account of what most of us were grateful to only see in the news—the sharply increasing case numbers, the dwindling supply of respirators, the lack of clarity on how to treat this new disease.”

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Lazaretto: How Philadelphia Used an Unpopular Quarantine Based on Disputed Science to Accommodate Immigrants and Prevent Epidemics 

By David Barnes ’80
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023

“In the 1790s, four devastating yellow fever epidemics threatened the survival of Philadelphia, the nation’s capital and largest city. In response, the city built a new quarantine station called the Lazaretto downriver from its port. From 1801 to 1895, a strict quarantine was enforced there to protect the city against yellow fever, cholera, typhus, and other diseases. At the time, the science behind quarantine was hotly contested, and the Board of Health in Philadelphia was plagued by internal conflicts and political resistance. In Lazaretto, David Barnes tells the story of how a blend of pragmatism, improvisation, and humane care succeeded in treating seemingly incurable diseases and preventing further outbreaks.”

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Sex and the Planet: What  Opt-In Reproduction Could Do for the Globe

By Margaret Pabst Battin ’58
The MIT Press, 2024

“What would the world be like if all pregnancy was intended, not unintended as it is nearly half the time now? Considerably better, Margaret Pabst Battin suggests in Sex and the Planet, a provocative thought experiment with far-reaching real-world implications. Many of the world’s most vexing and seemingly intractable issues begin with sex—when sperm meets egg, as Battin puts it—abortion, adolescent pregnancy, high-risk pregnancy, sexual violence, population growth and decline. Rethinking reproductive rights and exposing our many mistaken assumptions about sex, Sex and the Planet offers an optimistic picture of how we might solve these problems—by drastically curtailing unintended pregnancies using currently available methods.”

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Year of the Cicada 

By Mei-Mei Holland ’10
Jaded Ibis Press, LLC, 2023

“On the cusp of her thirtieth birthday, Mei-Mei returns to her hometown to find it swarmed by the mysterious 17-year cicada, which last appeared when she was twelve and on the edge of adolescence. The emergences of these biblical Mid-Atlantic insects intersect with Mei-Mei’s evolving understanding of an absent grandmother, a mixed-race heritage, and the long shadow of suicide, giving her the tools to connect these profound threads together. In poetry and lyric prose, Year of the Cicada delicately charts one woman’s coming of age between two appearances of the heralding insect, through which the speaker navigates heavy silences, intimate moments, and the terror of uncertainty.”

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Celtic Druidry: Rituals, Techniques, and Magical Practices

By Ellen Evert Hopman ’70
Destiny Books, 2024

“In this authentic handbook for the Celtic Druid path, Ellen Evert Hopman shares lessons, rituals, and magical techniques drawn from the ancient wisdom teachings of the Celts as well as a modern Druid Order created by the leading minds of twentieth-century Celtic Reconstructionism. Hopman begins by exploring what we know about the original ancient Druids, citing Druid-contemporary sources such as Caesar and Diodorus Siculus as well as transcriptions of Druid oral teachings. She explains the basic tools and clothing of a Celtic Druid, including instructions for making the essential tools of the craft, such as the crane bag and the 
apple branch, the tool used to open a Druid rite. She explores meditation techniques based on ancient texts and discusses the Goddesses and Gods of the Celtic pantheon, Druidic cosmology, and the Druidic festivals that occur throughout the turning of the year.”