During the COVID-19 pandemic, readers returned to Camus' 'The Plague'

Camus contracted tuberculosis as a teenager

There was still little understanding of treatment for the disease at the time; for most people, a tuberculosis diagnosis was a death sentence. The 17-year-old Camus was quarantined in his uncle's house, where he grew into an avid reader. Scholars note that the experience would inform his later work, including his 1947 novel "The Plague."

Camus' books are largely ignored in Algerian schools

The writer was born in Algiers, wrote fondly of his home, and is perhaps the most well-known Algerian-born writer of all time, but his works are no longer taught. In 2010, a series of events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death was not permitted by the authorities. Scholars say that's because Camus believed the North African country should remain a French colony; after it gained independence in 1962, Camus' work fell out of fashion.

Albert Camus' 'The Fall' encourages readers to live without illusions

The writer's final complete novel is a series of dramatic monologues from Jean-Baptiste Clamence, who tries to explain to a stranger the sound of laughter that began following him. As the "Philosophize This!" podcast argues, the book is Camus' attempt at wrestling with some of the thornier aspects of existentialism in a form that's more digestible than a dense philosophical tome.

Kamel Daoud's 'The Meursault Investigation' earned him a fatwa

Although the novel was read by many as a criticism of Camus' "The Stranger" and French colonialism in Algeria, it was also read by some as blasphemous. In December 2014, a member of the Islamic Awakening Front, a militant Islamist group, said the book "placed the Koran in doubt, along with the sanctity of Islam" and called for Daoud's execution.

'The Stranger' remains a popular novel for teenagers

Camus' book's themes—alienation, transgression, and existentialism—continue to resonate with adolescent reader. That's also true of other popular teenage touchstones, like Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," and Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar," which are still widely read—and assigned by high school teachers. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Camus directed a Picasso-penned play

The show, called "Desire Caught by the Tail," was written by Picasso in 1941 while living in Nazi-occupied Paris. It was first staged in 1944, featuring several French intellectuals, including Albert Camus, who directed, as well as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, who had starring roles.

Consumers are buying more books now than they were 20 years ago

Interest in reading spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic and has continued building since then. The romance and fantasy genres in particular have been especially popular, with titles celebrated on BookTok, a wing of TikTok dedicated to reading, spurring the craze.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

COVID accelerated antibiotic resistance

The COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a virus, and viruses can’t be treated with antibiotics. But recent research finds that COVID patients were given a tremendous amount of antibiotics, contributing to the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Why? This NPR feature sheds light on an unexpected side effect of the pandemic.

How the most famous Ebola outbreak book got aspects of the disease so wrong

Richard Preston's 1994 book The Hot Zone brought knowledge of Ebola to the masses. But, beyond the poor portrayals of the science and the scientists, the book fostered fearmongering about Ebola, with portrayals of "liquefying," "dissolving," and "bleeding out." These falsehoods about Ebola have persisted for decades and appear to be reinvigorated with every new emergence of the disease.

The bubonic plague spread in three waves over 600 years

The Black Death refers to the first wave of the plague, which swept through Europe in the 14th century and killed 25 to 50 million people. Caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis carried by fleas (often on rats), the human toll was roughly one-third of Europe's population at the time.

Hollywood's efficient response to the Spanish flu made it a filmmaking destination

In 1918, the Great Influenza epidemic killed more than 675,000 Americans. Los Angeles was one of the first cities to shut down movie theaters, most of which were independently owned and couldn’t afford the revenue loss. The results were twofold: the quick response meant that Hollywood could bounce back faster than other film hubs, and it also contributed to the rise of vertical integration as studios stepped in to purchase the flailing theaters.

Early reviews turned ‘Harry Potter’ into an unexpected hit

Though only 500 hardback copies of "The Philosopher’s Stone" were printed in 1997—and mostly sent to libraries, due to doubts it would sell—glowing reviews and word of mouth fueled a surge in demand. Within a year, the book had sold more than 70,000 copies in the UK.

Penicillin was hailed as a 'wonder drug' upon its release

When penicillin became widely available in the 1940s, newspapers and doctors alike celebrated it as a “wonder drug” that could cure infections once considered fatal.

Grosse Île, the quarantine island of the Port of Quebec

As tens of thousands of Irish emigrated to North America to escape the Great Famine in the mid-19th century, many port cities set up quarantine areas amid an epidemic of cholera. In Quebec City on the St. Lawrence River, one island became a mass graveyard where over 3,000 Irish immigrants died over a decade as they waited in quarantine. Listen to the history here.

How banning a book ensured its success

This article explore the controversial history of DH Lawrence's novel "Lady Chatterley's Lover." Learn about how it was banned in several countries and the six-day trial in the UK that lifted the ban. Soon after going on sale, the novel became a bestseller and a significant cultural touchstone.

A book series aimed at World War II soldiers helped popularize works like 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Of Mice and Men.'

More than 4,000 people died from cholera in 2023

This global health threat sickened more than half a million people in 2023 and killed 4,007 people. That's a 71% increase in deaths as compared to a year earlier. (Report only offered in PDF format.)

Mapping fiction's imagined breakdowns of the US after apocalypse

Post-apocalyptic fiction in the US is at least a century old, and how the future is envisioned reflects contemporary anxieties and divisions. This piece examines the various creative maps birthed from the tradition from Jack London's 1912 "The Scarlet Plague," a pandemic novel set in 2073, through Stephen King's "The Stand", dystopian "The Hunger Games," and visions of civil war.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

None of Dickens' books has gone out of print

Dickens was a literary celebrity during his lifetime, but his popularity has endured over a century after his death. Publishers have kept his books in print to satisfy demand. It's paid off: "A Tale of Two Cities" alone has sold over 200 million copies.

Sartre's 1980 funeral attracted a massive crowd

The legendary existentialist died April 15, 1980. A week later, mourners packed the streets of Paris to pay tribute. Estimates suggest that between 20,000 and 50,000 people were in attendance. In the Associated Press footage below, you can watch them following the hearse from the hospital where the thinker died to his resting place in Montparnasse Cemetery.

Listen to the audiobook version of 'A Brief History of Time'

First published in 1988, Stephen Hawking's most famous novel has sold more than 25 million copies in 40 languages. Through non-technical terminology, Hawking discusses the nature of space and time, general relativity, quantum mechanics, gravity, black holes, and cosmology.

Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of 'War of the Worlds' invoked real panic

The raconteur's teleplay of HG Wells' 1898 science fiction novel presented the plot as a news broadcast, leading some listeners to believe that New Jersey was being invaded by Martians. This retrospective from the National Endowment for the Humanities unpacks how he made it happen, and the media fallout that ensued.

COVID-19 disruptions revived ancient chinampa farming in Mexico City

When the pandemic disrupted food supply chains, chinamperos—farmers who cultivate the Aztec-era “floating gardens” built atop shallow lakebeds—shifted to direct sales in the city, boosting their visibility and reconnecting residents with a longstanding local agricultural tradition.

King once shelved his own book

“Rage” was one of King’s earliest novels and the first to be published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. After several school shootings mirrored the book’s plot, in which a troubled student murders several of his teachers, King asked his publisher to discontinue the title, fearing it might have inspired the assailants.

'Keep Calm and Carry On' was long-forgotten World War II propaganda

The British Ministry of Information developed the stoic phrase ahead of German attacks at the start of World War II in 1939. It was never officially released on posters and then lay dormant until 2000, when one of the remaining posters was discovered at a bookstore in the UK. It has since been adapted into countless memes.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus remains extremely rare, so the 2026 hantavirus cruise ship outbreak doesn't mean we're facing a COVID-style pandemic risk.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight