1. gregladen
  2. Cheap science book deals

Cheap science book deals

By gregladen on August 18, 2017.

I've mentioned at various times in the past The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett. This is not a new book, but it is an excellent scholarly and accessible accounting of the situation with respect to emerging diseases at the time of its publication in 1995.

One of the most interesting stories covered here is the reaction in the US to the Swine Flu, during the Ford administration. I was reminded of this when we had our tiny outbreak of Ebola. I'm sure you've been following the whole anti-vax thing over the years. I believe that the anti-vax philosophy in the US has its roots in the Swine Flu debacle, though I've never seen that addressed by the usual suspects who speak and write about that problem. Anyway, I just noticed that Garrett's book is in Kindle form for 7.99 (though cheaper in used form in print, if you look around.

For a mere two bucks you can get the Kindle version of The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story. This is the same author as The Hot Zone, and explores small pox. This 2002 book is a bit out of date vis-a-vis recent developments in genetic research, and is probably a bit sensationalistic, but if your library of sensationalistic disease related non-fiction is missing this volume, now is is your chance!

Tags
Books
cheap science books
Books

More like this

Summer reading 2: Richard Preston's "Panic in Level 4"
I had ended up with a ratty old piece of Army gear, a space suit that belonged to nobody A little voice started speaking in my head. What are you doing here? the voice said. You're in an Ebola lab in a fucking defective space suit. I started to feel giddy. It was an intoxicating rush of fear,…
#Ebola UPDATE-Rate Of New Cases Rises, Note to Laurie Garrett, is there a case in South Africa?
New for August 16th I will try to keep new information and updates in the same post for a while until I have a chance to do a comprehensive re-overview of everything. The 16 August update from WHO indicates a large uptick in the daily number of cases. Over the two days of the most recent…
Vaccination vs. Disease: Which is worse?
It is very reasonable for a parent to worry about vaccines. For one thing, most of them involve sticking the baby or child with a sharp object, thus making the little one cry, and it would be abnormal to not have an automatic reaction to that. For another thing, they are drugs, in a sense. When…
Vaccination vs. Disease: Which is worse?
It is very reasonable for a parent to worry about vaccines. For one thing, most of them involve sticking the baby or child with a sharp object, thus making the little one cry, and it would be abnormal to not have an automatic reaction to that. For another thing, they are drugs, in a sense. When…

Le Plague -- c'est moi.

By Mentifex (Arth… (not verified) on 18 Aug 2017 #permalink

ISTR reading 'The Hot Zone', was the origin an island in Northern Lake Victoria, Africa?

How about a narrative on the influenza outbreak that killed so many towards the vend of and following WW1:

'Catching Cold' Pete Davis.

Proud owner of The Coming Plague for at least 10 years. Great read. Plus, c'mon: why wouldn't sciency types like us want to learn everything they can about the history of the likes of of ebola, Marburg, etc.?

But the last chapter is the scariest, actually. It's about how the overuse of antibiotics during the decades I was growing up led to the evolution of superbugs like MRSA, and how our efforts to combat them are one of the greatest challenges medicine has ever faced.

By metzomagic (not verified) on 23 Aug 2017 #permalink