On this edition of The Weekly Reader, we review two new, dystopian novels that imagine a world in the throws of a pandemic: Marion Winik on Lawrence Wright's The End of Octoberand Sarah Pinsker's A Song for a New Day.
The End of October, Lawrence Wright, Knopf
A Song for a New Day, Sarah Pinsker, Berkley
![](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/fc99f72/2147483647/strip/true/crop/497x300+0+0/resize/880x531!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fsites%2Fwyprmain%2Ffiles%2F201804%2Fivy_with_sponsor_message_1.jpg)