Welcome to Litsy!

Amazingly interesting. A page-turner, even.

Maybe reading this during a pandemic wasn't the best choice--I'm beyond pissed. Don't get me wrong, I love Quammen (one of my favorite science writers) and this is a great example of his careful research written in accessible style. But the information in this one book alone is enough to have every government in the world moving infectious disease management to the top of the priority list. Instead, the US gov slashed funding, ignored the science.

Every section of this book, every chapter, makes me angrier for the devastation going on right now with Covid-19.

We knew this was coming, experts were screaming from rooftops, but policy decided to gamble with the world's lives instead. I have three sections left of this incredible book. I might lose my mind to absolute rage by the end.

Section: Dinner at the Rat Farm

Here the book is about the SARS-CoV outbreaks (a coronavirus), the hunt for the reservoir species (source of the virus), the amplifier species (what enabled the virus to jump from the source into humans), and the multi-country collaboration to find answers.

The unbearable part? We had all this knowledge already and our leadership chose to cut funding anyway.

This book was written in 2012. It‘s terrible that we all know the answer to this question now. #covid #coronavirus

Science, pandemics, world wide.
Thanks for the tag @wanderinglynn #wondrouswednesday
Anyone else want to play?

One of these I read in 1993 when I was working with children Dying from AIDS in Johns Hopkins. I never thought we would see this level of disconnect, bias and politicization about a health crisis- but clearly I was wrong. All of these books taught me something important and informed my understanding of the intersection of health, public safety and govt. the last pic is my new shirt 😁 please feel free to share more books with me-I love this topic

I started this in March on audio. It has been a long but thorough book. I loved the information but also that the science clearly shows we have opportunities to be ahead of pandemics if we take responsibility for our actions. The more we know the more informed our actions will be. Consider that the US Pandemic Response team was fired in 2018 to cut costs, and now we are paying a much higher price.

Thanks for the tag @LeeRHarry

1. What @Reggie said because if I'm lucky enough to talk to a reader, I like to recommend something in their interests. A book that I read this year & recommended: tagged. No one wants to read it; can't imagine why 🙃

2. I tend to look up stuff to read via websites, social media. Maaaaybe I look up books to read more than I do actual reading? Maybe.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

Wanna play @sudi @Tanisha_A ?

1. Help! Name a character who takes on too much, is constantly overwhelmed and loves hiking and reading?
2. The lack of civics, in both act and understanding, in our culture, climate change, my garden. If I was not working from home my family would be in there. Reading is also always ongoing.
3. Smell.
#wondrouswednesday
Play along! You! Yes you! 🥳❤️😘

Thank you for the tag @BiblioLitten @CarolynM @Tanisha_A @sudi these are my #top6reads for the first half of a truly bizarre 2020.

I left out re-reads or else three of those (Emily of New Moon, Julius Caesar, and Sense and Sensibility) would have definitely been in my top 9 reads 🙈

@fleeting @Lcsmcat @Graywacke @Lindy if you'd like to give it a go?

This Author has skills. His writing and research are impressive and his “voice” lightens his heavy subject matter. However, I really wish the book had been laid out in a more chronological way and that he had skipped the fictional spread stories that while very well written, I dodn‘t want in my nonfiction book.

Good read especially during an active pandemic gives the reader a perspective of how this could happen.

David Quammen's prose is clear & vivid. He doesn't take his audience for fools, but he does take the time to describe stuff in detail & with care. Science writing with a dash of anthropology & investigative journalism. I learned about zoonosis, reservoir hosts, & a whole lot about viruses. The quote above sums up the problem with pandemics: how humans choose to live. The Next Big One is always around the corner. WE are the outbreak on this planet.

David Quammen writing in 2012, in the chapter about the SARS-CoV outbreak.

This article tells us about profits over humanity in terms of funding: https://bit.ly/3asBy3s “ 'We have a broken ecosystem for making vaccines,' Hotez told me. If the business wasn‘t set up this way, Hotez thinks, he‘d have a Covid-19 vaccine to offer, based on an earlier project that wilted from lack of funding." SARS went away & so a vaccine was no longer a moneymaker.

1. My garden 🥰🥰🥰I am going to attempt lettuce this Spring.
2. I used to be an extrovert, since getting sick I‘m an introverted extrovert.
3.ive read 4 books. They were all good! I‘m in the middle of the tagged book on audio- it‘s also very good.
4. @ElizaMarie @BookwormAHN @wanderinglynn @Meaw_catlady @UnidragonFrag
#friyayintro

If knowing more about zooinotic infections, like COVID-19, helps calm you, then this is the book to read. While being pretty dense, it is eminently readable and very informative. It covers diseases like Hendra, Ebola, SARS (another Coronavirus), Malaria, HIV, and Influenza. Honestly, the chapter on HIV is absolutely fascinating; I still can‘t get over the fact that HIV first crossed over into humans around 1908. I recommend this book highly.

In the pursuit of a new book for my virology class, this is my second book. Excited for this one! I had started with a virus I was not aware of, Hendrix! #knowledgeispower 🦠

So detailed and interesting even if he hates the hot zone

Up next!

Awesome book. Equal parts interesting and terrifying! Really got me in the mood for all things 'plague-like'...such a cheery start to the weekend!

Thank you for the fantastic box of goodies, @Chelsibeau 😄 Everything is perfect!

Spillover sounds right up my alley! That‘s super cool your thesis is on one of the topics (good luck!) and the impact your boss has had! It looks like I‘m going to learn a lot of interesting facts with Everybody Lies! I can‘t wait to read both!

Thanks again! 😊 And a big shoutout to @inwhichHeikereadsharder
for organizing!

#2018nonfictionbookexchange

Yah. My reading list is pretty bizarro. Lol.😂

I was trying to wait to post this, because I know I'll finish at least a few more before the end of the year, but everyone else's we're so fun I couldn't stand it!!

the most seriois outbreak on the planet earth is that of the species Homo Sapiens.

Curling up with Spillover this evening.

Just some of the non-fiction books I've abandoned anywhere from 50 to 200 pages in. All of these were fascinating, eye opening, gripping even, until... my attention wandered ☹