Doomsday Book (1992) by Connie Willis is a groundbreaking time-travel novel that intertwines two devastating pandemics: a 21st-century flu outbreak in Oxford and the Black Death in 14th-century England. History student Kivrin Engle, sent back to the Middle Ages for research, finds herself stranded amid the plague’s horrors, while her mentor, Dunworthy, races against modern bureaucracy to retrieve her.
Willis’s meticulous research and emotional depth—highlighting faith, resilience, and the universality of suffering—earned her Hugo and Nebula awards. A masterpiece blending historical fiction and sci-fi.
