Station Eleven has become one of my all-time favorite novels. Not #1, but definitely top five. I've still got a couple months left, but there's a very good chance it will be the best book I've read this year.

How do I describe Station Eleven? It's the story of Miranda and her titular graphic novel, her failed marriage to the actor Arthur Leander, and how they're lives intertwine with a first-responder-to-be Jeevan and eight-year-old Kristen.

And there's a deadly strain of the flu that wipes out something like 90% of the population, Shakespeare, and Star Trek: Voyager.

Not your typical dystopian novel, the plot is set both before and after the outbreak. Often long before and after. For Kristen, at least, she was too young (and perhaps too traumatized) to even remember the first year after the world died. As the reader, we have to follow the threads that Emily St. John Mandel weaves for us very carefully, not seeing the whole tapestry of her world until the end of the novel.

Personally, I love stories like this. You're invested in the characters, with all their flaws, and though there is no real mystery to solve, there's still this puzzle to piece together. How are these people connected? Why? And that in itself is a beautiful story.

Emily St. John Mandel has an almost poetic writing style, which isn't too surprising considering how heavily Shakespeare's plays feature in the plot. And the setting: Michigan and Canada. I'm biased, but it's safe to say that these locations also play an important role in setting the scene.

She also has a way of making pop culture (referencing both Star Trek: Voyager and the fictional Station Eleven graphic novel here) into works of poetry. Into art akin to Shakespeare.

And isn't that lovely?

Listening to on Scribd. Narrated by Kirsten Potter.