A Dystopian Novel? Now? And Other Books and Pastimes

Yes, I know--How crazy is it to pick up a dystopian novel based on the premise of a world-decimating influenza from the Republic of Georgia? Very crazy, I'll admit, but read on. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was so highly acclaimed after its publication in 2014. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pen/Faulkner Book Award. Station Eleven was also the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Book Award and the Toronto Book Award. The novel received accolades from dozens and dozens of the best book reviewers around the world.

I bought it back in 2014 for my Nook, but never read it, yet can you believe I turned to it today, while waiting for another book to arrive?
Part of the premise of Station Eleven is little bit of a turn-off for me. The novel focuses partially on a group of troubadors, who wander from the shores of Lake Michigan to the shores of Lake Huron, (and I'm assuming Lake Ontario) to sing rock ballads and perform the plays of Shakespeare.
The world has been decimated by the "Georgian Flu," and after 20 years, life has been stripped down to its barest elements. No gasoline, no petroleum oil fuel, no electricity, no Internet, and the like. I read 50 pages this afternoon and am not yet convinced it's a great book, but I have 280 pages more to go. So it's too early to tell. 
In these times, I can't say I would recommend it to anyone, but I have a perverse trend of mind. And guess what? It's a treat because this post-apocalyptic novel reveals to me that our situation could be so much WORSE!  ha.

Okay, I promised you other books and pastimes.
Last winter I read Winter in Paradise, a wonderfully atmospheric, fun novel by Elin Hilderbrand, set on the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Although St. John and its better-known, larger partner island St. Thomas was decimated by two hurricanes several years ago, Hilderbrand chose her setting there to be years just prior to the hurricanes, before so many businesses were destroyed and were not able to be re-built.

Her second novel in the series, What Happens in Paradise, was published last October 2019, but I have only just purchased it for my Nook. And I'll tell you, I so enjoyed the first novel that I'll thoroughly enjoy immersing myself in the main family drama and in the lives of all of the other characters who were introduced in Winter in Paradise. Looking forward, and Note! These are both COMFORT reads. Highly recommended by yours truly.

Other pastimes: I've been having so much fun telephoning my cousins, a couple each day. What a treat! We get into family history a lot.  The latest debate: What was the severe illness that our grandmother suffered that had her sleeping on the open-air porch at the family farm during the winter of 1922? I had the facts on that one, passed down by my grandmother's sister (my great-aunt Ruth), and all three of my grandmother's daughters, including my mother. It was tuberculosis. And, my grandmother was not alone in this, but when she became pregnant with my mother in 1923, she finally, finally made a full recovery from TB. It's now known that this sometimes happens because of the vast hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy. (My grandfather's first wife died of tuberculosis after only one year of marriage. It is likely that he was a carrier and infected my grandmother, as can happen.)