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The Premonition

A Pandemic Story

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The Premonition

By: Michael Lewis
Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

'It's a foreboding,' she said. 'A knowing that something is looming around the corner. Like how when the seasons change you can smell fall in the air right before the leaves change and the wind turns cold.'

In January 2020, as people started dying from a new virus in Wuhan, China, few really understood the magnitude of what was happening. Except, that is, a small group of scientific misfits who in their different ways had been obsessed all their lives with how viruses spread and replicated - and with why the governments and the institutions that were supposed to look after us, kept making the same mistakes time and again.

This group saw what nobody else did. A pandemic was coming. We weren't prepared.

The Premonition is the extraordinary story of a group who anticipated, traced and hunted the coronavirus; who understood the need to think differently, to learn from history, to question everything; and to do all of this fast, in order to act, to save lives, communities, society itself. It's a story about the workings of the human mind; about the failures and triumphs of human judgment and imagination. It's the story of how we got to now.

©2021 Michael Lewis (P)2021 Penguin Audio Biological Sciences Contagious Diseases Physical Illness & Disease Physics Science Social Sciences Sociology China Thought-Provoking

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All stars
Most relevant  
English bloke here!
The book is a bit of a ramble, but still worth a listen/read.
According to the author:-
The US government appointees were, apparently, no use.
The US civil service , CDC and others at state level, are as much use as an ash tray on a motorbike.
There were a few individuals who were right.
This is objectivism, Ayn Rand would approve!
Why do Americans keep banging on about Neville Chamberlain v Winston Churchill?

In some ways, confusing.

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This book has written from the perspective of those who tried but failed to influence US government policy for their prevention and containment of pandemics. it details the excellent preparatory work that was done, mostly in private, by committed individuals, which for some reason was never enacted by the authorities who could have done so.
there is a suggestion in the later part of the book as to why this might have been the case, based on the history of the 1976 through pantomime that wasn't and the political reaction to those then involved. This political reaction, it could be argued, broke public health in the US, and influenced civil service thinking throughout most of the anthroponic world.
As a doctor, I find this white disheartening, but has an optimist I hope we can learn from this episode better lessons than we learnt from the past

Important but disheartening glimpse inside health

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I think the narrator here was the wrong choice; it was like listening to a bedtime story as opposed to a compelling and thought provoking Michael Lewis book.

Great book - bad reading

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Fascinating story and personal perspectives of key people behind the scenes of the US pandemic preparations, sublime writing, excellent narration. Timely, classic Michael Lewis.

Fascinating

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Offering a critique of the narration of this book is tricky, because it appears the narrator is a woman of colour, and I am not, so there are perhaps cultural differences that make the narration more inaccessible to me than to others (and maybe this is a good thing!)... nonetheless, I found the way this book was narrated more a hindrance than a help.

The book itself is fantastic. Classic Michael Lewis - richly drawn characters set inside a much bigger story. Completely compelling, and offering a means to better understand a hugely complex issue, and be entertained at the same time.

A difficult AUDIObook to review

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the content has some interrsting people but the narrator sounds too much like an automated phone voice meaning that the mind wanders

not his best but worth reading

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Michael Lewis has the talent to take any subject and turn it into a real page-turner (or whatever the audiobook equivalent is). This book is of course timely and relevant (at time of writing), just as the Omicron variant was announced.

Lewis' character studies are always keenly observed, his background research shoes through in his portrayal of the protagonists. Another great story well told.

Unfortunately Adenrele Ojo was hard to listen to, due to a small habit of ending her sentences with a plaintive wail. Used occasionally, this had effect. As her default intonation, it became like an itch that was once negligible, but by the end of book, rubbing me raw.

Lewis does it again

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The person reading this doesn’t seem able to anticipate where any given sentence may go and frequently seems simply to be reading a series of words in. the. order. in. which. they. appear. I lasted about 10 minutes. What a shame - because it’s a promising story.

Is this read by an AI?

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Good in parts. The narrator was poor. I had heard the author reading a chapter and he was excellent. I don’t know why he wasn’t chosen to read his own book when he’s got his own podcast!

P.S. Ms Ojo, please remember the word ‘twenty’ has a second ‘t’ in it and should be pronounced as such, instead of “twenny”.

Bit of a “curate’s egg”

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Really interesting book told through different perspectives. Interesting how the public health system has become so disconnected and poorly prepared for fighting a pandemic. Lewis writes a compelling story covering a 100 years with lessons from the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak were ignored and how reliance on data (in the absence of data) leads to inaction and indecision. Political appointment of officials “to blame” - who can easily be fired, simply adds to the problem.

Failures of a public health system

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