Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic MP3 CD – Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
Author: Visit ‘s David Quammen Page ID: 1491545089
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Exemplary science writer Quammen schools us in the fascinating if alarming facts about zoonotic diseases, animal infections that sicken humans, such as rabies, Ebola, influenza, and West Nile. Zoonoses can escalate rapidly into global pandemics when human-to-human transmission occurs, and Quammen wants us to understand disease dynamics and exactly whats at stake. Drawing on the truly dramatic history of virology, he profiles brave and stubborn viral sleuths and recounts his own hair-raising field adventures, including helping capture large fruit bats in Bangladesh. Along the way, Quammen explains how devilishly difficult it is to trace the origins of a zoonosis and explicates the hidden process by which pathogens spill over from their respective reservoir hosts (water fowl, mosquitoes, pigs, bats, monkeys) and infect humans. We contract Lyme disease after it
s spread by black-legged ticks and white-footed mice, not white-tailed deer as commonly believed. The SARS epidemic involves China
s wild flavor trend and the eating of civets. Quammen
s revelatory, far-reaching investigation into AIDS begins in 1908 with a bloody encounter between a hunter and a chimpanzee in Cameroon. Zoonotic diseases are now on the rise due to our increIDg population, deforestation, fragmented ecosystems, and factory farming. Quammen spent six years on this vital, in-depth tour de force in the hope that knowledge will engender preparedness. An essential work. –Donna Seaman
–This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
“That [Quammen] hasnt won a nonfiction National Book Award or Pulitzer Prize is an embarrassment
Timely and terrifying. Mr. Quammen, a gifted science writer, combines physical and intellectual adventure. He also adds a powerful measure of moral witness: ecological destruction is greatly to blame for our current peril.” (Dwight Garner – The New York Times)
“David Quammen [is] one of that rare breed of science journalists who blend exploration with a talent for synthesis and storytelling.” (Nathan Wolfe – Nature)
“Riveting, terrifying, and inspiring.” (Georges Simenon – Wired)
“David Quammen might be my favorite living science writer: amiable, erudite, understated, incredibly funny, profoundly humane. The best of his books, The Song of the Dodo, renders the relatively arcane field of island biogeography as gripping as a thriller. That bodes well for his new book, whose subject really is thriller-worthy: how deadly diseases (AIDS, SARS, Ebola) make the leap from animals to humans, and how, where, and when the next pandemic might emerge.” (Kathryn Schulz – New York Magazine)
“[Spillover is] David Quammens absorbing, lively and, yes, occasionally gory trek through the animal origins of emerging human diseases.” (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
“As page turning as Richard Prestons The Hot Zone
[Quammen is] one of the best science writers.” (Seattle Times)
“[Spillover] delivers news from the front lines of public health. It makes clear that animal diseases are inseparable from us because we are inseparable from the natural world.” (Philadelphia Tribune)
“Starred review. …a frightening but critically important book for anyone interested in learning about the prospects of the worlds next major pandemic.” (Publishers Weekly)
“Starred review. A wonderful, eye-opening account of humans versus disease.” (Kirkus Reviews)
“Starred review. An essential work.” (Booklist)
–This text refers to the Paperback edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
MP3 CDPublisher: Brilliance Audio; 1 MP3 Una edition (September 16, 2014)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1491545089ISBN-13: 978-1491545089 Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 6.8 inches Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #1,459,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #832 in Books > Medical Books > Medicine > Internal Medicine > Pathology > Diseases > Viral #989 in Books > Medical Books > Medicine > Internal Medicine > Infectious Disease > Communicable Diseases #995 in Books > Medical Books > Administration & Medicine Economics > Public Health > Epidemiology
The jargon of diseases can be boring, tedious. There are a lot of acronyms and big words. Worse, we often don’t know as much as we’d like — and usually we aren’t very certain of what we do know. Telling a good story given those constraints is hard. But Spillover repeatedly provides gripping stories that still impart a good understanding of what we know about zoonotic (animal-origin) diseases. Even better, the author ties disparate stories together to describe some general trend and possible causes for seemingly new infectious diseases. But I don’t want to summarize the conclusions: I want you to go read it. You won’t be bored and you’ll learn a lot (most definitely even if you’ve read books like The Hot Zone or the Coming Plague).
Some other notes:
* The author has a less human-centric attitude and a lot of sympathy for the animals, like horses or apes, who sometimes are actually the first animal a disease spills over into only to later infect humans.
* He has a wry tone. When noting the euthanasia of a large number of monkeys (even ones likely not infected with a disease), he notes no humans were euthanized despite equal exposure.
* He provides full references. Some of those papers are quite readable by a non-expert such as this review ([…]) of the importance of bats as reservoirs for infectious diseases.
* The stories are often told from the perspective of the scientists trying to figure out what the heck is really going on. The author is also not afraid to explain when scientists just don’t know — and how they might figure it out more.
* The author went on several field collections where he might have been exposed to a disease being investigated.
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