Margaret Atwood’s first novel in the MaddAddam Trilogy, Oryx and Crake (2003), is both prophecy and satire. Prophecy because it imagines a future that is based on technologies we already possess. Satire because it eviscerates hallowed institutions and the excesses of capitalism. And like all stories about viruses running amok, this novel feels even more eerily prescient when read after the COVID-19 pandemic.

On March 11, 2011 an earthquake struck just off the coast of the Tohoku region of Japan, triggering a massive 50-foot-tall tsunami that wiped entire villages off the map and caused the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima power plant. This became known as the Triple Disaster of March 11, one of the worst disasters in Japanese history. If the triple disaster of March 11, 2011 is unfamiliar to you or…

In case you never read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906)—or if you have forgotten it since reading it in high school—this novel is not a story about Mowgli, Shere Khan, and the “bear” necessities. No indeed. The Jungle is a canonical example of an American protest novel—ostensibly about labor conditions—but reading it turned enough congressional stomachs to lead (unintentionally on Sinclair’s part) to federal regulations of the food processing industry, including the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. Lest you think a novel written 117 years ago has little relevance today, there continue to be…