Daniel Defoe put a lot of research into his 'Journal of the Plague Year,' yet it doesn't read like a history report. Rather, this is a novel so realistic you can quite literally feel what it must have been like to have lived in London at the time of the plague. The facts as he knew them, both from reading and interviews with those who lived through it, are revealed to us throughout the narrative. You get every detail of the plague, from the symptoms to the hysteria to the steps the government took to help insure the safety of the people. 'Journal of the Plague Year' is a fascinating and imminently readable book.