Pushkin.

It's hard to read the news these days without asking yourself, how did we get here?

Fiasco is a history podcast for the co-creators of Slow Burn.

In our first season, Bush v. Gore, we examined an unmistakable turning point in American

politics, the 2000 election, which resulted in a high-stakes stalemate, ended with one of the most

controversial rulings in Supreme Court history. So if you're trying to make sense at the present

moment, check out Fiasco, Bush v. Gore. Listen on theHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

From Pushkin Industries, this is deep background, the show where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.

I'm Noah Feldman. Readers all over the world are buying books about epidemics right now.

Sales of Albert Camus' 1947 novel, The Plague, have tripled in Italy.

They're up in the UK and in France.

Stephen King's 1978 novel, The Stand, about a killer virus, saw a 58% increase in online sales last month.

And among scholars of literature,

some of the classics of Western writing,

like Boccaccio's famous collection of stories,

the DeCameron, which are set in a time of plague,

are drawing renewed and indeed almost obsessive attention.

Maybe we're turning to books for answers

that we can't get from scientists and politicians,

or maybe we're trying to find another way

to make sense of our world.

We also might be just trying to get out of it and escape.

...