I have read other books since my last post, just haven’t got round to writing anything about them yet (might also be that they are books one isn’t ready to confess to reading, yet).
I’ve been following Ed Yong for a while on Ed Yong – Twitter but wasn’t aware that he had written a proper book, I had only seen his newspaper and magazine articles/columns.
The full title of his book is Amazon Link: I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life and will change the way you look at anti-microbials.
I never really got into biology at school, and my last book review was more on the physics and chemistry side of things. However, I’ve always had a soft spot for microbes and never been of the “ZOMG, must disinfect everything” way of life: I shave my cheese when necessary.
This book is all bout the bacteria that live on, in and around us. Without them we would be dead, and it seems the more we try to disinfect them out of our lives the more likely we are to end up dead.
It’s a fascinating read and makes you realise how important it is to look at the big (and very very small) picture of our whole environment.
What I like most about it is that every so often the light-bulb above the head comes on as you make a connection related to your own life: diet and farts, infectious disease, etc.
Off you go now, broaden your knowledge.
