pickThis book is a fascinating look at the 1918 flu, focusing on the US and taking the time to set the stage in politics and medicine before the pandemic occurred. It‘s eminently readable and I didn‘t want to put it down. I do feel like it left a couple threads hanging, but that didn‘t take away from the book for me.
Over generations, the gene pool of the first farmers became increasingly dominated by individuals who could drink beer on a regular basis. Most of the world‘s population today is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol.🍻🍺
#quotes
Reading Patient Zero while sitting in the ER waiting room with a friend. Perhaps a little too perfect that I'd just picked up this to read
so-soEh. This was just okay. Published in 2019 before the recent plethora of pandemic fiction, it doesn‘t stand among the best. Or maybe I‘m just salty that she killed my favorite character. 😒
In a small California college town, students then other community members fall asleep for weeks or even months at a time. In order to contain the contagion, the town is cut off from the rest of the country making the healthy fight for survival, too.
pickY'all this book sucked me in! I'm trying to do better about my #nonfiction reading and this book focuses on the cholera outbreak in London. This was a fascinating read part medical thriller part medical mystery and well paced. #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks
“Hemoglutamine, ‘H,” looks like a lollipop. Its stalk projects into the membrane. It is the metaphorical crowbar that allows the virus to break into a cell, while neurominidase, ‘N,‘ is the glass cutter that allows it to exit again.”
H1N1 was the later-assigned code for the “Spanish” flu, as well as the more recent “swine” flu.
“We avoid things we find disgusting…when contagion is a threat. The Caribbean spiny lobster is highly sociable by nature, but it refuses to share its den with another lobster that is infected with a lethal virus.”
This guy looks pretty healthy: he can share my den anytime!
pickI read this pick from my #AuldLangSpines list from @Cinfhen and it was so good. It was well written and helped me learn about the healthcare workers who fought the virus so hard. The last chapter of this book, written before COVID-19, was pretty prescient about the pandemic to come. I‘m not sure if this Ebola outbreak was technically a pandemic or an epidemic but I‘m counting it for #Booked about a pandemic
