PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Schama...is not the obvious or best qualified person to tell these stories. Nonetheless, he has done a superb job of distilling the secondary literature ... Schama’s passion for his subject sometimes get the better of him.
David Quammen
RaveThe Observer (UK)Few writers are able to understand the strings of amino acids that give these viruses their distinctive codes, let alone relate them to other Sars-like viruses. And even fewer possess the literary gifts necessary to make the genomics comprehensible to lay readers. Fortunately, David Quammen, whose previous works include books on Ebola and other viruses that periodically infect humans, is one of them ... This not only allows him to leaven the science with vivid pen portraits but makes him a shrewd judge of character. What emerges is a viral howdunnit that is pacy and unafraid to educate readers in the nuances of gain of function and the wider ecology of pandemics without straying into invective ... Quammen addresses each theory and concern in exemplary fashion ... perhaps the real value of this book is that Quammen brings a naturalist’s eye to these debates. At the end, one is left with a deep appreciation of the diversity of nature and the serendipity of natural selection, which every day is shuffling and rearranging the genomes of viruses in ways that scientists can only begin to imagine.
Bill Gates
MixedThe Observer (UK)... preventing pandemics is as much an epistemological problem as a technical one. We can prepare for known pandemic threats, but so-called Black Swan events are by definition unknowable and unpredictable...If this problem has occurred to Gates, he does a good job of disguising it ... Nor is he interested in addressing the role of information technology in spreading conspiracy theories about vaccines or misinformation about the effectiveness of lockdowns and mask mandates. This is surprising given that Gates has been accused of using vaccines to plant microchips in unsuspecting populations and is a prominent target for anti-vaxxers. But rather than calling for a rapid reaction team to neutralise fake news about vaccines, Gates ducks the issue, writing that he is confident \'the truth will outlive the lies\' ... I do not share his optimism. If anything, the experience of Covid demonstrates that conspiracy theories now present a major impediment to the management of pandemics along rational scientific lines. Never mind Germ. What is needed is Dirt – Disinformation Response Team.
Adam Kucharski
MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewIn this smart and engaging tour of epidemiology, written before the pandemic, Kucharski makes a convincing case that just as the arc of an epidemic depends on the transmissibility of a virus and a population’s susceptibility to infection, so online contagions obey similar rules.
Suzanne O'Sullivan
PositiveThe GuardianOffers fascinating insights ... O’Sullivan is a sure guide to these maverick brains and strange auras ... she is careful not to pass judgment on her patients, studiously parsing their accounts of hallucinations and seizures for clues to the underlying neurological dysfunction.
Helen Thomson
PositiveThe Guardian...Bob, can recall a day from 40 years ago as easily as yesterday. Not just who he was with and what the weather was like, but his exact thoughts and sensations. Sometimes, as when the experience was unpleasant, these memories can be a source of pain. But replaying such memories also enables Bob to learn from his mistakes and, in the case of a lost loved one, his extraordinary memory allows him to travel back in time. Indeed, Bob makes a point of memorising relationships that are valuable to him, the better to be able to relive them later. According to Thomson, we can learn a lot from people like Bob ... Thomson makes a virtue of her limitations by travelling the world in search of \'strange brains\' in an effort to understand them as a \'friend might\'. It is, for the most part, a successful strategy and although I did not fully buy her claims to have entered her subjects’ peculiar sensory universes, by the end of her journey she had certainly persuaded me to see the world differently.
David France
RaveThe Guardian...[a] subtle and searing history of this late-20th century plague and those who survived it ... It is a difficult balancing act, but France avoids hagiography. Instead, he uses his privileged access to put us in the heart of the action, or more usually, inaction ... As befits a Greek tragedy, France ends on a note of pathos, returning to the story with which he begins his book: the mysterious death of Spencer Cox, Harrington’s right-hand man who is widely credited with the trial innovations that helped bring new Aids drugs to market in record time.
