Black Death at the Golden Gate by David K. Randall

Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague by David K. Randall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Startling how similar the reaction of the Governor of California was over 100 years ago to that of our President today. Just cover up the Bubonic Plague! Don't make a big deal of it and it will go away. Microbes don't care about positive thinking or panic or anything other than actual protective measures and treatment.

All the descriptions of this book say it's the story of Rupert Blue, but can we take a minute for Joseph James Kinyoun? He was the first hero. I have a lot of sympathy for him. It's terrible to live in a world where people won't listen to science and require being constantly charmed to accept reality. The bad guys create a fictional world and force us all to live in it.

Fun fact: You can still get Bubonic Plague from fleas, though early detection and treatment with antibiotics should cure you.

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Bitten by Kris Newby

Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons by Kris Newby
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There’s a lot of interesting Lyme Disease information here but there’s also a lot of speculation and drama that makes it tough to mentally compartmentalize what I accept as fact or likely.

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The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a lot of amazing information in this huge tome, and it took me three weeks to get through, but it was worth it. It could have used a firmer editing hand though. Both the chronology of infectious diseases and the diseases themselves were divided into chapters in ways I failed to understand. Additionally, given the large amount of extremely useful information provided by this book, it would have moved the book along to edit down every individual thought every patient and every doctor ever had, every description of every little leaf in the jungle the disease emerged. I could basically write an entire book review about any chapter, it's so overwhelming.

There was a lot of information about AIDS provided in the second half of the book.

Some of the themes of the book are sleuthing the origins of novel pathogen outbreaks, scientific hubris, and illness containment fails.

I recently watched an interview with Dr. Ian Crozier, an ebola survivor, and I was amazed at how much I understood that I'd only just learned from the information in this book.

I read this for some insight into the novel virus outbreaks like our cures coronavirus outbreak but I definitely gained a great deal more from reading this. And what a great ending!

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