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Top of the pile
85
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
74/100Critics
96/100Scholars
Author:
David Quammen
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster
Date:
October 4, 2022
The story of SARS-CoV-2 and its fierce journey through the human population, as seen by the scientists who study its origin, its ever-changing nature, and its capacity to kill us. David Quammen shows how strange new viruses emerge from animals into humans as we disrupt wild ecosystems, and how those viruses adapt to their human hosts, sometimes causing global catastrophe.
What The Reviewers Say
Compelling and terrifying.
Mr. Quammen, a prolific science journalist and author, uncovers all sorts of details about the efforts to investigate the spread of Covid and discern the features that made it so menacing. Breathless is not a political book and touches only briefly on the failures of institutions and leaders to mount an adequate response to the pandemic. Instead, it is an engagingly written chronicle of scientific inquiry. Along the way, Mr. Quammen introduces us to important researchers who, until now, have been largely unknown.
Sweeping, deeply reported.
Quammen takes readers step by step through the genetic and epidemiological data.
