One of my favourite places ever is a local Oxfam charity bookshop. It is always like a wonderland of books, as it often brings to your attention books that you did not even know you needed. The last time I entered the shop, that is exactly what happened to me. Nestled in the classics section was a novella by Jack London called ‘The Scarlet Plague’ and it immediately grabbed my attention. I have never read a book by Jack London (although ‘The Call of the Wild’ is on my to-be-read pile) but I have had a an interest in him since my first visit to Canada, when I discovered that he had ventured on the Klondike Trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘The Scarlet Plague’ is a great little read and a book that I am a glad I have decided to read as an introduction to London’s work. This is one of those classics that was set in the far future (post-2013) but actually is still very relevant today. In fact, the date if this tale is irrelevant but the story is highly relevant – and is a stark warning of what could happen if almost ALL of mankind was to be wiped out by plague. It is a fascinating study of how the world would have to start again and those who had never experienced the ‘modern’ world would never really be able to comprehend it – it would seem stranger than fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought this book was wonderful and a great, undiscovered gem. Have you ever stumbled across a surprise, joyful read?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of my favourite places ever is a local Oxfam charity bookshop. It is always like a wonderland of books, as it often brings to your attention books that you did not even know you needed. The last time I entered the shop, that is exactly what happened to me. Nestled in the classics section […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[373,221,414,413],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-a-year-in-books-2019","tag-classic-fiction","tag-jack-london","tag-the-scarlet-plague"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8jrc7-dW","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bookwormandtheatremouse.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}