I’m rereading “the stand” myself.

which caught my eye as somewhat appropriate for these times were "The Great Deluge" by Douglas Brinkley (i.e. incompetent and slow government response to a disaster) and "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman (i.e. what would happen to the world if all the humans suddenly disappeared).

just finished a few days ago. Really good and fairly current...

e-reader.

Blurb from amazon:

What's the point in solving murders if we're all going to die soon, anyway? Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There's no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.

The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job -- but not Hank Palace. He's investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week -- except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace's investigation plays out , we're confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?

I wound up simultaneously checking facts about the Black Death in a Penguin book I had about it. She clearly did her research very carefully.

Since then I've gotten to know Connie. You might never guess from that book that she is one of the smartest, funniest, and acerbic persons on the planet. I get to see her at various science fiction things, lucky me.

I hadn’t read the Doomsday book in years. What struck me this time around was that phones and computers were still stuck in the early 90s.

To be fair to her, it came out in 1992, when cell phones were just getting started. But as the years roll on, that's a bigger and bigger flaw. Especially to someone reading it now for the first time.

Perhaps 15 or so years ago I read a novel in which not only did no one have a cell phone, but it apparently took place in an alternate universe in which answering machines had never been invented. The lack of them was very jarring, because people kept on calling or at least trying to call each other.

I think the YA books for teens is very current on trends/technology.

YA series. I read it years ago and now want to reread it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When the tail of the comet Bhaktul flicks through the Earth's atmosphere, deadly particles are left in its wake. Suddenly, mankind is confronted with a virus that devastates the adult population. Only those under the age of eighteen seem to be immune. Desperate to save humanity, a renowned scientist proposes a bold plan: to create a ship that will carry a crew of 251 teenagers to a home in a distant solar system. Two years later, the spacecraft Galahad and its crew -- none over the age of sixteen -- is launched.

Link is here

Once the safest, most prosperous place on earth, the United States is now a lawless, scantly populated wasteland. The machines have stopped. The government has collapsed. Farmlands lie fallow and the soil is contaminated by toxins. Across the country, families have packed up their belongings to travel eastward toward the one hope left: passage on a ship to Europe.

Franklin Lopez and his brother, Jackson, are only days away from the ocean when Franklin, nearly crippled by an inflamed knee, is forced to stop. In the woods near his temporary refuge, Franklin comes upon an isolated stone building. Inside he finds Margaret, a woman with a deadly infection and confined to the Pesthouse to sweat out her fever. Tentatively, the two join forces and make their way through the ruins of old America.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92555.The_Pesthouse

Great recommendations. Thanks!