illness & disease

 

The next Genre Reading Group meeting is Tuesday, April 27th on Zoom at 6:30pm and the topic up for discussion is international authors.  The third row of Shelf Care has some selections to choose from if you don’t know where to start: https://oneallibrary.org/adults---reading-recommendations

Last night, on GRG’s one year Zoomiversary, we met to discuss illness & disease, a timely topic in the age of COVID. Here are the books we read:

The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease by Charles Kenney

A vivid, sweeping history of mankind’s battles with infectious disease, for readers of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Yuval Harari’s Sapiens and John Barry’s The Great Influenza.

Zombie Makers: True Stories of Natures Undead by Rebecca Johnson

Are zombies real? As far as we know, dead people do not come back to life and start walking around, looking for trouble. But there are things that can take over the bodies and brains of innocent creatures, turning them into senseless slaves. Meet nature's zombie makers―including a fly-enslaving fungus, a suicide worm, and a cockroach-taming wasp―and their victims.

Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City by Fang Fang and Michael Berry

From one of China’s most acclaimed and decorated writers comes a powerful first-person account of life in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry

The strongest weapon against pandemic is the truth. Read why in the definitive account of the 1918 Flu Epidemic. 

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik

The most fatal virus known to science, rabies-a disease that spreads avidly from animals to humans-kills nearly one hundred percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. In this critically acclaimed exploration, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart four thousand years of the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies.

Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad by Peter Hotez

In 1994, Peter J. Hotez's nineteen-month-old daughter, Rachel, was diagnosed with autism. Dr. Hotez, a pediatrician-scientist who develops vaccines for neglected tropical diseases affecting the world's poorest people, became troubled by the decades-long rise of the influential anti-vaccine community and its inescapable narrative around childhood vaccines and autism.

Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization by Elena Conis

With employers offering free flu shots and pharmacies expanding into one-stop shops to prevent everything from shingles to tetanus, vaccines are ubiquitous in contemporary life. Yet, while vaccination rates have soared and cases of preventable infections have plummeted, an increasingly vocal cross section of Americans have questioned the safety and necessity of vaccines. In Vaccine Nation, Elena Conis explores this complicated history and its consequences for personal and public health.

Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs by Michael Osterholm

A leading epidemiologist shares his "powerful and necessary" (Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone) stories from the front lines of our war on infectious diseases and explains how to prepare for global epidemics.

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

Winner of the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing Winner of the John Burroughs Medal Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award in Natural History Literature

In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Tova Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her encounter with a Neohelix albolabris—a common woodland snail. While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own place in the world.

Together in a Sudden Strangeness: America’s Poet’s Respond to the Pandemic edited by Alice Quinn

In this urgent outpouring of American voices, our poets speak to us as they shelter in place, addressing our collective fear, grief, and hope from eloquent and diverse individual perspectives.

An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System, A Tale in Four Lives by Matt Richtel

Drawing on his groundbreaking reporting for the New York Times and based on extensive new interviews with dozens of world-renowned scientists (including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), Matt Richtel has produced a landmark book, equally an investigation into the deepest riddles of survival and a profoundly human tale that is movingly brought to life through the eyes of his four main characters, each of whom illuminates an essential facet of our “elegant defense.”

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney

In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted -- and often permanently altered -- global politics, race relations and family structures, while spurring innovation in medicine, religion and the arts.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received. But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's darkest hours.

Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston

The #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named one of the best books of the year by The Boston Globe and National Geographic: acclaimed journalist Douglas Preston takes readers on a true adventure deep into the Honduran rainforest in this riveting narrative about the discovery of a lost civilization -- culminating in a stunning medical mystery.

Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-Science by Peter Hotez

The last five years saw a significant return of epidemic infectious disease, culminating in COVID-19. In our new post–COVID-19 world, how do we prevent future illnesses by expanding scientific and vaccine diplomacy and cooperation, especially to combat the problems that humans have brought on ourselves?

Blue Marble Health: An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor Amid Wealth by Peter Hotez

Clear, compassionate, and timely, Blue Marble Health is a must-read for leaders in global health, tropical medicine, and international development, along with anyone committed to helping the millions of people who are caught in the desperate cycle of poverty and disease.

Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates (requires a Netflix subscription, check your streaming/online rental channels for additional availability)

Take a trip inside the mind of Bill Gates as the billionaire opens up about those who influenced him and the audacious goal’s he’s still pursuing.

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease.

The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator by Timothy Winegard

A pioneering and groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that offers a dramatic new perspective on the history of humankind, showing how through millennia, the mosquito has been the single most powerful force in determining humanity’s fate.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

In his bestselling books, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, has fearlessly revealed the struggles of his profession. Here he examines its ultimate limitations and failures―in his own practices as well as others'―as life draws to a close. Riveting, honest, and humane, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life―all the way to the very end.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death by Jean-Dominique Bauby

In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young childen, a 44-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brainstem. After 20 days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body which had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired. Almost miraculously, he was soon able to express himself in the richest detail: dictating a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again. In the same way, he was able eventually to compose this extraordinary book.

Hidden Killers of the English Home (requires an Amazon Prime Video subscription, Check your streaming/online rental channels for additional availability)

We all know that “an Englishman’s home is his castle.” British historian Suzannah Lipscomb beckons us to get off the sofa and look closely at legendary structures from Edwardians, Victorian, Tudor, and even modern times. The myth of the historic English home, with its legendary comforts and warmth, quickly yields to a nightmare of infestations, toxic materials, and unsafe construction practices.

Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the “wonder” substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives...

Made into a feature film in late 2020. Requires a Netflix subscription, check your streaming/online rental channels for additional availability.

Suspected origins of the plague doctor mask shape:

https://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2008/01/08/bird-hats-and-wax-pants-antipl