I picked this up during the covid pandemic, but did not have the stomach to read it until years later. Fortunately, it turned out to be less traumatic than I feared. The book is excellent in every respect. It combines deep, clear scientific explanations with just the right amount if narrative storytelling to be highly readable. I frequently get bored with books halfway through, but I read this through with out significant interruption because it was so interesting.
The only downside (which was not enough to take off a star) is the author's long winded imagining of the origin of AIDS. It felt unnecessary and kind of disrespectful to the people he was imagining - including, in one case, to a real life Congolese woman who he casually assumes to be a whore. It just wasn't necessary, or helpful, or insightful.
Spillover
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars | 4,765 ratings
Price: 30.57
Last update: 07-26-2024
Top reviews from the United States
Amazon Customer5.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkably Good
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2024
bill greene5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterpiece! Epic in scope, highly relevant, and excellent writing 10/10
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2020
Overall: This book is an absolute masterpiece. Epic in scope, brilliant in how it is all connected, very relevant to today, and extremely eye opening and illuminating. Not an easy read but absolutely worth it! 10/10
Summary:
Much of this story is detailing Quammen's adventures and research following various zoonosis around the world.
Fun fact: Historically, some 60 percent of the infections that plague humankind, from influenza to H.I.V. and bubonic plague, all originated in the bodies of other animals.
This book is neatly divided into sections based around a certain zoonosis or a group of similar ones. Each section is a meticulous telling of the origin, history, pertinent findings and research, development, and current state of these various zoonotic diseases.
Take home message: eat more plants and chocolate!
Note: though this book is all about zoonosis it should not cause the reader to panic or be scared about them. “Spillover” hardly touches on such pandemic-worthy animal pathogens as avian flu or multi-drug-resistant bacteria, rather, it fully describes the unfolding convergence between veterinary science and human medicine, and how veterinary-minded medical experts discover and track diseases that spread across species. “Spillover” is less public health warning than ecological affirmation: these crossovers force us to uphold “the old Darwinian truth (the darkest of his truths, well known and persistently forgotten) that humanity is a kind of animal” — with a shared fate on the planet. “People and gorillas, horses and duikers and pigs, monkeys and chimps and bats and viruses,” Quammen writes. “We’re all in this together.”
“When a pathogen leaps from some nonhuman animal into a person, and succeeds there in establishing itself as an infectious presence, sometimes causing illness or death, the result is a zoonosis.”
The Good: I loved this book! Granted it is a subject I am very interested in but I listened to it with my husband who has no medical or animal background, and he immensely enjoyed it as well. The storytelling is amazing, it really does read like a narrative and I felt swept away at many points that I had to remind myself this was nonfiction. Another major positive is the scope. This book has SO MUCH information and yes, you absolutely have to pay attention, but the author does a great job at bringing everything together and explaining difficult to understand topics. It is a blend of science, history, ecology, anthropology, immunology, research, and all presented cohesively in a narrative that grips you with every chapter. My favorite section of all was Ebola. Overall, this book is phenomenal, very relevant to current events, and I learned so much while listening to it. Highly recommend.
The Bad: There were a few chapters in the section on AIDS that the author was speculating and theorizing that I was not a fan of. I preferred the remainder of the book which was all based on facts and science that I found these few chapters distracting and out of place. Some sections are dense in material that you really do need to be paying attention in order to keep up. I found this to be a positive though as I really learned a lot while reading this book.
Summary:
Much of this story is detailing Quammen's adventures and research following various zoonosis around the world.
Fun fact: Historically, some 60 percent of the infections that plague humankind, from influenza to H.I.V. and bubonic plague, all originated in the bodies of other animals.
This book is neatly divided into sections based around a certain zoonosis or a group of similar ones. Each section is a meticulous telling of the origin, history, pertinent findings and research, development, and current state of these various zoonotic diseases.
Take home message: eat more plants and chocolate!
Note: though this book is all about zoonosis it should not cause the reader to panic or be scared about them. “Spillover” hardly touches on such pandemic-worthy animal pathogens as avian flu or multi-drug-resistant bacteria, rather, it fully describes the unfolding convergence between veterinary science and human medicine, and how veterinary-minded medical experts discover and track diseases that spread across species. “Spillover” is less public health warning than ecological affirmation: these crossovers force us to uphold “the old Darwinian truth (the darkest of his truths, well known and persistently forgotten) that humanity is a kind of animal” — with a shared fate on the planet. “People and gorillas, horses and duikers and pigs, monkeys and chimps and bats and viruses,” Quammen writes. “We’re all in this together.”
“When a pathogen leaps from some nonhuman animal into a person, and succeeds there in establishing itself as an infectious presence, sometimes causing illness or death, the result is a zoonosis.”
The Good: I loved this book! Granted it is a subject I am very interested in but I listened to it with my husband who has no medical or animal background, and he immensely enjoyed it as well. The storytelling is amazing, it really does read like a narrative and I felt swept away at many points that I had to remind myself this was nonfiction. Another major positive is the scope. This book has SO MUCH information and yes, you absolutely have to pay attention, but the author does a great job at bringing everything together and explaining difficult to understand topics. It is a blend of science, history, ecology, anthropology, immunology, research, and all presented cohesively in a narrative that grips you with every chapter. My favorite section of all was Ebola. Overall, this book is phenomenal, very relevant to current events, and I learned so much while listening to it. Highly recommend.
The Bad: There were a few chapters in the section on AIDS that the author was speculating and theorizing that I was not a fan of. I preferred the remainder of the book which was all based on facts and science that I found these few chapters distracting and out of place. Some sections are dense in material that you really do need to be paying attention in order to keep up. I found this to be a positive though as I really learned a lot while reading this book.
Neuron5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2013
This is the best book I have read in a long time. It is like a mystery thriller played out in various exotic locations around the world, that simultaneously, gives the reader intriguing and accurate knowledge about various exotic but dangerous pathogens that have the potential to forever change life as we know it. In other words, if you would put the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, a travel diary book by Bill Bryson, and an Agatha Christie thriller in the mixer, you would get something like this. It just doesn't get better than this!
David Quammen's writing is accessible and throughout the book I was amazed by his ability to explaining difficult scientific concepts in a way that makes the reader understand... even crave science. Though I have read many scholarly articles, no single text I can recall have given me such a deep understanding and appreciation for a scientific subject. I have always been fascinated by bacteria and viruses, however this book multiplied my fascination and my appreciation for the scientists that study viruses and other pathogens in humans as well as in other species.
This book is about spillovers (surprise!). A spillover is when a virus or a bacteria which normally live in one species transfer to a different species. Normally this transition spells the end for the pathogen because they evolved to live in their host species and not in the new species, but sometimes the pathogen survive or even thrive in their new host, which is typically bad news for the new host.
Think of pathogens such as Ebola, rabies, HIV, SARS, and the Spanish flu, all of which are spillovers from other species, and you will understand that pathogens that have the potential to spillover a.k.a zoonotic viruses can result in disaster.
Be assured, you will learn much about these intriguing pathogens, however, this book is not just a review of what we know about zoonotic viruses. On the very first page Quammen takes us to a sunny idyllic farm in Australia. Recently a number of horses have died following under mysterious circumstances. Worse still, several humans that came into contact with the horse also died. What caused these deaths and from where did the horses acquire it? Quammen instantly grips the reader. It was an instant page turner, with real science in it! You must know how these horses and humans died and you gladly, eagerly, follow Quammen when he takes you on a journey in the scientific literature as it develops over time, with frequent field visits that Quammen personally joined to understand the subject better.
Quammen cover several different pathogens, including HIV, Ebola, malaria, and SARS, and he travels accordingly. We get to follow scientists (and Quammen) into crowded Asian markets where hundreds of different animal species, each with their own set of nished pathogens, can be bought for that evenings dinner. We get to visit Bangladesh to analyse date-palm-sap to see if bats have pooped deadly virus into this popular drink. We visit the Congolese jungle where Ebola have completely eradicated large populations of gorillas as well as some smaller human populations. We go to caves filled with snakes, bats and guano. Of course we also get to visit high tech laboratories around the world to talk to researchers who try to understand these zoonotic viruses and predict where the next big pandemic will strike - because if or when "the next big one", capable of killing us by the millions, comes, it will almost certainly be a spillover from another species.
The human species is vulnerable. We are around seven billion people. We are an urban species meaning that we tend of cluster in large groups (cities), which provides pathogens with the perfect springboard. We travel extensively, and could thus easily spread a virus around the globe in a short amount of time. We also continually mess with new ecological systems which may or may not have a deadly virus just waiting for a new host...
Put another way. Human population growth is an typical example of an outbreak i.e., explosive population growth. Just like with outbreaks of crickets that sweep across Africa eating everything it encounter, humans are sweeping across the entire planet, interfering with lots of ecological systems along the way. Indeed the most massive outbreak of any species that the world had ever seen is not a cricket or a larva, it is homo sapiens. And when there is an outbreak of a particular species what typically halts it? You guessed it - pathogens.
David Quammen's writing is accessible and throughout the book I was amazed by his ability to explaining difficult scientific concepts in a way that makes the reader understand... even crave science. Though I have read many scholarly articles, no single text I can recall have given me such a deep understanding and appreciation for a scientific subject. I have always been fascinated by bacteria and viruses, however this book multiplied my fascination and my appreciation for the scientists that study viruses and other pathogens in humans as well as in other species.
This book is about spillovers (surprise!). A spillover is when a virus or a bacteria which normally live in one species transfer to a different species. Normally this transition spells the end for the pathogen because they evolved to live in their host species and not in the new species, but sometimes the pathogen survive or even thrive in their new host, which is typically bad news for the new host.
Think of pathogens such as Ebola, rabies, HIV, SARS, and the Spanish flu, all of which are spillovers from other species, and you will understand that pathogens that have the potential to spillover a.k.a zoonotic viruses can result in disaster.
Be assured, you will learn much about these intriguing pathogens, however, this book is not just a review of what we know about zoonotic viruses. On the very first page Quammen takes us to a sunny idyllic farm in Australia. Recently a number of horses have died following under mysterious circumstances. Worse still, several humans that came into contact with the horse also died. What caused these deaths and from where did the horses acquire it? Quammen instantly grips the reader. It was an instant page turner, with real science in it! You must know how these horses and humans died and you gladly, eagerly, follow Quammen when he takes you on a journey in the scientific literature as it develops over time, with frequent field visits that Quammen personally joined to understand the subject better.
Quammen cover several different pathogens, including HIV, Ebola, malaria, and SARS, and he travels accordingly. We get to follow scientists (and Quammen) into crowded Asian markets where hundreds of different animal species, each with their own set of nished pathogens, can be bought for that evenings dinner. We get to visit Bangladesh to analyse date-palm-sap to see if bats have pooped deadly virus into this popular drink. We visit the Congolese jungle where Ebola have completely eradicated large populations of gorillas as well as some smaller human populations. We go to caves filled with snakes, bats and guano. Of course we also get to visit high tech laboratories around the world to talk to researchers who try to understand these zoonotic viruses and predict where the next big pandemic will strike - because if or when "the next big one", capable of killing us by the millions, comes, it will almost certainly be a spillover from another species.
The human species is vulnerable. We are around seven billion people. We are an urban species meaning that we tend of cluster in large groups (cities), which provides pathogens with the perfect springboard. We travel extensively, and could thus easily spread a virus around the globe in a short amount of time. We also continually mess with new ecological systems which may or may not have a deadly virus just waiting for a new host...
Put another way. Human population growth is an typical example of an outbreak i.e., explosive population growth. Just like with outbreaks of crickets that sweep across Africa eating everything it encounter, humans are sweeping across the entire planet, interfering with lots of ecological systems along the way. Indeed the most massive outbreak of any species that the world had ever seen is not a cricket or a larva, it is homo sapiens. And when there is an outbreak of a particular species what typically halts it? You guessed it - pathogens.