Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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A History of Tuberculosis That Says Much More About the World in General

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

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This is a science history meets cultural history of tuberculosis but really could be used to understand so much about the systems, institutions and structures of disease, and the role poverty, capitalism and racism all play in access, stigma and treatment. I have only read one or two of John Green’s novels. I think the contrarian in me just resisted reading something so popular, especially when it didn’t even have dragons or fae in it. I know he has done a lot of other things […]

Maybe save this one for 2021.

Pandemic by Sonia Shah

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I love reading about infectious diseases, I really do. And I love reading about the history of public health, particularly in relation to infectious diseases and pandemics. But was it wise to read a book about pandemics, and the weaknesses in our public health infrastructure, at this particular moment in time? Perhaps not! It’s impossible to review this book without acknowledging the very weird time we are in, and the fact that Sonia Shah, like so many other infectious disease journalists and experts around the […]

This Book has Everything: Buboes, Iron Lungs, a Kennedy, and a Vegan Teetotaler Who’s Actually a Pretty Cool Guy

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I wish I could remember what it was that first sparked my interest in communicable diseases (and some noncommunicable), but I’ll tell you, there are just not enough books out there to quench my thirst on this topic. I’ve read just about every public health book on the subject that I can get my hands on (and if anyone out there has read a great book on malaria, please send it my way. I’ve been looking for one for a few years now). Get Well […]

Fault Lines

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This book was a huge disappointment. I’m a public health nerd, and my standards for a book about infectious disease is pretty low. Rising Plague didn’t meet them. The book starts with an introduction to multi-drug resistant bacteria, which is illustrated with stories of real patients Dr. Spellberg has treated, and then moves into an exploration of the pharmaceutical industry, and the barriers to creating new antibiotics. This section was pretty successful. The patient case studies are interesting, and I learned quite a bit about pharmaceutical companies, […]



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