hopelessandforlorn 's review for:

Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen

4.0

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David Quammen does it again. His previous book "Song of the Dodo" was my first foray into non-fiction that really engaged me like I thought only fiction could do. Now in "Spillover" he reminded me of how good non-fiction can really be. In "Spillover" Quammen sets out to track the sources of various animal viruses that spillover into humans, viruses like Ebola, Hendra, HIV-1 and a host of others, including Lyme's. The book is informative without being too scientific, adventurous without rambling and humorous despite its dire message. What Quammen continues to point out through the book is the encroachment of humans into animals habitats which leads to more possiblity of spillover. The detective work virologists do to track the source of these various spillovers is the most fascinating aspect of the book. The fact that patient zero for AIDS was not Gaëtan Dugas, as was widely believed in the late 70's and early 80's, but the disease has been around since 1908 and actually arrived in the US via tainted plasma from Haiti. Who knew? Well a bunch of really smart dedicated scientist knew and now thanks to another great book by David Quammen, I do too.