Gina Kolata Audiobooks

Flu: the 1918 pandemic and the hunt for the virus, from a New York Times science writer

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Who is Gina Kolata?

For decades the medicine and science pages of The New York Times have carried the byline of Gina Kolata. Born on 25 February 1948, she came to journalism from the sciences themselves, having trained in microbiology and applied mathematics, and that grounding shows in the way she handles a study: she reads the methods section.

She reported for Science before joining the Times, and has spent her career on the subjects where research meets people’s bodies, from genetics and cloning to obesity, fitness and the economics of disease. Her books extend the same project at greater length, among them Clone, Rethinking Thin and Mercies in Disguise.

She is not a comfortable writer for anyone attached to received wisdom. Kolata has a habit of asking whether a widely repeated health claim actually holds up, which has made her both widely cited and occasionally argued with. It is a good habit in a science reporter.

Gina Kolata in audiobooks

Her book Flu is with us, an account of the 1918 influenza pandemic and of the scientists who went looking for the virus that caused it, in frozen Alaskan graves and in preserved tissue in a government warehouse. It killed tens of millions in a matter of months, and for most of the century afterwards nobody knew quite what it was.

The recording runs a shade over six hours and Kolata reads it herself, which gives the detective sections a reporter’s forward lean. It was recorded well before the events of 2020, and listening now is an odd and instructive experience.

Short, propulsive and unexpectedly moving, it suits anyone who likes their science writing with a chase in it. You will find the recording below.