How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi

 How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi edited by Chris Balakrishnan and Matt Wasowski, 320 pages.

This book consists of bite-sized bits of knowledge on all sorts of STEM topics adapted from pop-science presentations given over two decades. It includes section headings such as "Mmm...Brains," "Creature Features," and "Tech (High and Low)." Most of the topics aren't more than a couple of pages long, and include a cute little comic or drawing of some sort (the book blurb describes these as infographics, but I didn't see anything I would describe as such flipping through the physical edition after I finished the audiobook).

Unfortunately, I found this book to be pretty much all style with little substance. It does a great job making the reader feel like they're learning something in a fun and easy way. Unfortunately, with how tiny the chapters are, by the time I got through the introduction and opening jokes there was essentially no time left to actually learn much. This feels like it's intended to be picked up and read a handful of pages at a time, but it's not actually efficient enough about presenting information to be very good for that. Unfortunately I don't know that I can recommend this extremely stylish book, there are better choices for books of general curiosities.

The dreamers

The dreamers / Karen Thompson Walker, read by Cassandra Campbell, 303 pgs.

An isolated college town is the setting for a strange epidemic.  A college kid falls asleep and can't be woken.  Then another and another...pretty soon it is an old fashioned plague.  People are scared and nobody understands what is going on.  The book follows a fairly large cast of characters, how they deal with the sickness, how they relate to each other and a little bit of their history.  A compelling story of a tragedy in modern day America. The audio version is expertly read by Cassandra Campbell. 

Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them

Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them by Jennifer Wright, 320 pages.

Jennifer Wright does a wonderful job recounting the history of some of the more well-known epidemics; the bubonic plague, cholera, and the Spanish flu, and she also talks about some of the (at least to me) lesser known plagues. I had never heard of the Antonine Plague before, and was only vaguely aware of the Dancing Plague and Encephalitis Lethargica. A great read.

Get well soon

Get well soon: history's worst plagues and the heroes who fought them / Jennifer Wright, 322 pgs.

Read by Gabra Zackman

I read some of the reviews of this book and several describe it as "lighthearted."  On the one hand, I see where they are coming from because the author makes some unexpected comments and some can certainly be seen as funny...but just how hilarious can it be when you are talking about millions of people suffering and dying from horrible medical conditions?  Each chapter in this book takes a look at a specific plague and how it was spread, how it was dealt with and the horrible repercussions of the aftermath on the population and history in general. The premise is simple, a horrible plague develops, there is some background on how it spread, how it was treated, how the society responded to it and who stepped up to help.  It is interested to see the same themes over and over.  Effective leadership in the times of plague do well to clear the bodies and figure out how to treat the ill.  Reading along, you realize that some ancient plagues may have been handled better than modern ones.  Maybe that reality won't sit well with everyone.

I listened to the audiobook and it was great.  Gabra Zackman does a wonderful job of making you want to continue listening.

Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond

Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond by Sonia Shah, 271 pages.

Sonia Shah, medical writer extraordinaire, presents a compelling account of both historic cholera epidmecs, and more recent events, such as ebola and bired-flu epidemics that have threatened to become pandemics. She traces cholera from its origins in the flooding mangrove swamps in the Sundarbans region of what is now Bangaladesh, to the recent outbreak in Haiti. Shah explains how the Vibrio Cholare bacterium had always been present, occasionally causing illness in those who wandered out into those waters. It wasn't until the vibrio mutated, changed to secrete a strong toxin, and found a way to attach itself to the inner walls of its human host's intestine.
Epidemiologists now live in fear for when the next zoonoses  adapts for human to human transmission.
I look forward to reading her 2010 book, The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years.

The book of Aron

The book of Aron / Jim Shepard 259 pgs.

A beautifully written book about an ugly topic.  Aron is a young boy in Poland whose family moves into the Jewish ghetto by the Germans who occupy Poland.  Slowly, his family is taken from him by illness, and labor camps.  He ends up in the orphanage run by Janusz Korczak but the ravages of illness, poverty and over crowding do not make for a lot of comfort.

Aron is a bit strange but is fairly self-sufficient. He joins a gang and helps to support his family with his dealings, ability to steal food and smuggle items.  All of his efforts do not prevent the horrors of the reality.  Things just keep getting worse.

Janusz Korczak is a real person and the story told here is mostly true.  It is horrible and sad and full of lice and illness.  An important work that will bring tears to your eyes.

Saving Gotham

Saving Gotham: a billionaire mayor, activist doctors, and the fight for eight million lives / Tom Farley 310 pgs.

The New York City health department under the leadership of Thomas Frieden became very active in trying to have positive effects on the health of its residents.  One of the first big "wins" was making restaurants and bars smoke free.  Bar owners thought this measure would put them out of business but in the end, business went up.  Turns out there are a lot more people who were avoiding smoky bars than going to smoke in bars.  By lowering smoking rates, the health department could project the number of lives saved.  Backed by Mayor Bloomberg, the department continued to make positive health related changes via regulations and laws.  The argument being, if a known infectious disease killed as many people as tobacco, obesity and high blood pressure, the health commissioner would lose his job.  Why NOT try to improve those things and improve the health of the populous.

I enjoyed this book and learned a lot more about public health verse the way we usually think of medical care...one doctor treating one patient at at time.

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Black man in a white coat

Black man in a white coat: a doctor's reflections on race and  medicine / Damon Tweedy 294 pg.

Damon Tweedy accepted a scholarship to Duke medical school and from day one has the feeling of being an outsider.  His classmates are almost all out of more exclusive schools, they are almost all from economically better off backgrounds and most are white.  Tweedy begins to dread the part of his education that deals with how much more prevalent and deadly diseases and medical conditions are to the African American population. Every time this comes up, he feels like the class turns to look at him.  But then, when he starts his clinical experience, he sees this disparity first hand...and it is much more uncomfortable in real life than just hearing the statistics.  Tweedy's perspective is interesting. He is diagnosed with a chronic disease that is more common among African Americans and can relate all the more with his black patients that are struggling to be healthier.  Some of the stories in this book are universal...the struggle to fit in, the struggle to do well, the situations where the inexperienced doctor is giving advice to the older, more experienced patient.  I like the way Tweedy admits he doesn't know it all.

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Being Mortal

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande  282 pp.

I'm going to start by saying this should be required reading in every medical school/intern-residency program. It should also be read by every doctor who deals with any possibly life threatening condition. (Wouldn't that be all of them?) Dr. Gawande researched and experienced the good and bad in the care of the dying in this country with both patients, friends, and family members. He explains how too many in the medical profession are so wrapped up in "fixing diseases" that they overlook what treatment is doing to the person's life and spirit and the lives of their family. He also points out the ways in which the concept of nursing homes fails. Quite a bit of this book is depressing, especially if you've ever experienced a life threatening illness (like me...twice) or care for an older family member (me too, again, with my siblings). Gawande does give hope at the end when he discusses the increasing use of hospice and other alternatives to hospital end of life care. This is an important book for anyone dealing with aging and declining family members and those of us who will be on that downhill slide sooner or later.

Rabid

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy, 275
pages

In Rabid, Wasik and Murphy provide an in-depth look at rabies, a ridiculously scary and deadly (still kills almost 100% of those who contract it and are not treated immediately) virus that has plagued the world for millennia. This history looks at the earliest-known descriptions and treatments of rabies and brings us through to the modern-day fight against the disease, spending a full chapter on Louis Pasteur, who created the first rabies vaccine and post-transmission treatment. Wasik and Murphy also spend plenty of time looking at rabies in popular culture, exploring how this, yes, diabolical virus permeated literature from the Brontes to Zora Neale Hurston to Stephen King, and influenced the descriptions of paranormal creatures such as vampires, zombies, and werewolves. It all makes for a fascinating and frightening book.

We live in water

We live in water / Jess Walter 177 pgs.

A fabulous collection of short stories, mostly set in Walter's hometown Spokane, WA.  It is difficult to pick a favorite but Don't Eat Cat is certainly up there.  Life is different now that a large population has been infected with hypo-endocrinal-thyro-encephalitis, a disease that leaves you with translucent skin, rotting teeth, skim-milk eyes - aka: Full zombie.  The line "But hiring zombies for food service?  I just think that's wrong." gives you a taste of the awesomeness of this story.  The narrator is just trying to get a coffee and the "infected" barista is unable to make that happen.  Turns out, those who are infected really want to eat cats and have to be re-trained frequently to keep them from doing so.

But this is just one of the many gems in this book.  I listened to the audio and it was wonderful.

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The Girl from the Garden / Parnaz Foroutan 271pp.

I am generally wary of novels with fruit on the cover.  They tend to be heartwarming family sagas, for which I reached my quota in about 1994.  But this story was something darker and stranger than its cover or title would anticipate, centering on an early 20th-century Jewish-Iranian family, and told through the recollections of one family daughter living in contemporary Los Angeles.   Asher marries Rakhel, but they fail to have a child, while Asher's brother Ibrahim and his wife happily await their first.  Asher's and Ibrahim's choices following the grief of the couple's infertility set up a twisted, dark revenge scenario, oddly believable and braided with strands from Old Testament greatest hits: the wisdom of Solomon, Abraham's sacrifice, Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Leah.  Foroutan is skilled and compelling, but this is one bleak landscape.  The moral of the story: hug a gynecologist today! (A pat on the back to a psychiatrist and a suffragette would not go amiss, either.)

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year by Matt McCarthy, 323 pages

In The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly, McCarthy documents his intern year as a medical resident, starting with his first shaky, uncertain days and carrying through to the competency he feels at the end of a rough, sleepless year. And he recalls it in such an easygoing, sometimes-humorous, sometimes-horrified style that the story just sucks you in. As weird as it may sound, I loved reading about his mistakes and the very human ways in which he responded to them (second-guessing himself, freaking out). Doctors can seem robotic in their interactions, particularly when they have so many people to see in such a short period of time, so it's good to see the experiences of the first year, where they're scared and worried (but still under strict supervision). A great book, well worth checking out.

A Clue to the Exit / Edward St. Aubyn 185 pp.

It seems lately the only fiction that holds my interest is the stuff I can't understand. So this was very interesting! Charlie Fairburn has six months to live, and he decides to spend it writing a novel about the meaning of consciousness while supporting the Monaco gambling habit of Angelique, his luscious girlfriend. The characters in Charlie's novel, Patrick, Crystal and Jean-Paul, sit on a train stalled in fog and discuss metaphysics, neuroscience and the mind/brain split as Charlie approaches his fevered end. Apparently some (or all) of these characters have appeared in St. Aubyn's The Complete Patrick Melrose Novels.

Full of deep meaning or perhaps not much meaning at all - hard for me to say. But worth it for the rich store of lovely, witty, delicately-balanced sentences such as: "Eccentricity was the natural and in itself cliched protest of slaughtered individuals" and "...if you jump out a window, you can always tell when you've reached the ground."