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Interesting, but a bit misleading. This isn‘t a history of the mosquito, it‘s a broad coverage of large historical events (The Crusades, the Black Death, etc) and how mosquitos affected those events. I would have preferred and out-and-out history of the mosquito.

Determined to finish this one today! #catsoflitsy

I almost finished this #bookspin, a runner up for the Canadian NF award last year, but couldn‘t get through it. It‘s a good overview of Western history, but should be more global: Asia (except the Mongols and Vietnam war) are left out, as are sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, and South America. It‘s also very military. Mosquitoes and diseases were at first an interesting historical lens that I got tired of.
#Nonfiction2021 #SomethingAboutHistory

Artemisinin, a wormwood variety described 2200 years ago in an ancient medical Chinese textbook as curing fever, was re-discovered as an anti malaria drug in the 1970s by Chinese military scientists asked for medical research by Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam war.
The team was led by Tu Youyou, a female scientist without a doctorate, a medical degree, or training abroad, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 2015.

#Bookspin for May:

1. Girl, Woman, Other
2. Butter Honey Pig Bread
3. Lost Children Archive
4. Long Way Home
5. Timbuktu
6. Talk about Race
7. The Salt Path
8. Hidden Life of Trees
9. Africville
10. Chop Suey Nation
11. Bush Runner
12. Homegoing
13. No Friend but the Mountains
14. Death and Life of Great Cities
15. The Innocents
16. How to Pronounce Knife
17. Unsettling Canada
18. The New Jim Crow
19. Five Little Indians
20. Seven

Interesting info about Devils Island, off the coast of French Guyana, which was a prison used by the French starting in the 1700s, after the settlers seeking some kind of paradise were mostly killed off by mosquito-borne diseases.

Factoid: Oliver Cromwell died of malaria rather than try a cure —“the Popish remedy”— that had been developed by Catholic Jesuits.

My #Bookspin for this month! It might‘ve been one from last year too. It was a runner-up for Canada‘s non-fiction award last year: I started it but didn‘t finish it but will try again. History (by a military historian) which relies pretty heavily so far (I‘ve gotten to ancient Rome) on Western history, with a focus on how mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases play a role. I think I‘ll make it my falling to sleep book.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation releases an annual report that identifies the animals most lethal to humans. The average annual average number of human deaths caused by the mosquito has hovered around 2 million. We come in a distant second at 475,000, followed by snakes, dogs and sand flies, the tsetse fly, and the assassin and kissing bugs.

Very detailed and informative, but it does go on a bit too long. I'm not sure I buy the author's arguement over the importance of the Mosquito. Man doesn't seem to be the master of his own fate in Winegard's view, the mosquito has decided the rise and fall of every empire, chosen our leaders and picked the countries man can inhabit. It's a little too grandiose to me. 3 🦟🦟🦟

1st book finished for #CYOreadathon. @Sace

Overall this one was just okay for me. It does have a ton of interesting information, but I felt like it became redundant after a few chapters. Any major event with catastrophes, blame the mosquito. I realize they play a huge part in transmitting disease, but it made the writing boring to keep hearing similar explanations.

I'm glad I went with audio on this one because I might have given up on the physical book.

This one is hard to rate. Because even though it's filled with really interesting facts (you can tell by the number of times I posted), and even though it's crucial to understand the role of the mosquito if you want to understand history, I can't help but to feel that this might have been better as an artice than an entire book. This is somewhere between a So-So and a Pick.

As William Ukers advocated in his 1922 book, All About Coffee, "Wherever it has been introduced it has spelled revolution. It has been the world's most radical drink in that its function has always been to make people think. And when the people began to think, they became dangerous to tyrants."

Geneticists believe that 8-10% of people living in the former Mongol empire are a direct lineage of Genghis Khan. To put this another way, roughly 40-45 million people currently on the planet are his direct descendants. If we collected all the descendants of Genghis Khan into one country, it would be the thirtieth most populous nation in the world today, ahead of countries like Canada, Poland, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Australia.

It goes on to say that wearing bright colors also attracts mosquitoes, as does smelling nicely from shampoos and perfumes. Beer also attracts mosquitoes.

"Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything." --Plato

The two words on the previous page before this passage are, "Statistically throughout"

(Continued)...chickenpox and shingles; pigs and ducks donated influenza; and from cattle arose measles, tuberculosis and smallpox.

I was expecting this to be a science book, demonstrating my inability to read subtitles, but it is a history of how the mosquito, specifically mosquito-borne disease, has impacted human civilizations. It‘s heavily US- and Western-centric and mostly interesting, but it does get a bit redundant after a while. Basically, mosquitos are evil and secretly rule the world. Between pick and so-so.

Audio model building! I enjoyed my last model building experience so much that I decided to embark upon another model. It‘s another bookstore and it‘s turning out super cute so far! Though I have to say putting together all the tiny books has been a bit tedious at times. This is a good book to pair with it—a long history of the effect of mosquitos on (mostly Western) human civilization.

January round-up, non-poetry edition. Tagged book was my favorite (and only nonfiction) of the bunch. 3 audiobooks, 3 short story collections, 1 in translation, and the 1 nonfiction.

5⭐️! This nonfiction book covers the history and context of how mosquitos have affected human history, largely through the transmission of malaria and yellow fever. From the Roman and Mongol Empires, to the decimation of native populations in the Americas, the African slave trade, wars for independence (US, Haiti, central/South American nations)—the mosquito has been there. Also looks at malarial drugs, but this is not a science book. #netgalley

I always pick a hefty book to read for early winter. Last year was the Korean War. This year, the mosquito. So far, it‘s a bit of a slog, and the historian keeps calling the insect General Anopheles, which annoys me. While some parts are interesting, I can‘t wholeheartedly recommend this one. I‘ve never read Jared Diamond and curious if they‘re good and less dry.

Nonfiction about the mosquito, how it can spread disease, and how it has altered the course of human history.

I‘m hosting book club on Thursday and started the nearly weeklong preparation by finalizing my 5 selections for the group vote and pulling together a selection of wines. I can‘t wait to see what the group picks!

Found a new nonfiction book at Costco that looked pretty interesting. Let‘s see how the mosquito has determined the fate of humanity...

Only female mosquitos bite. Of the 108 billion people who have lived on this planet, mosquitoes (more accurately, the viruses/parasites they carry) have killed nearly half. Do you know how elephants defend themselves against the mosquito‘s bite? You‘ll find the answer in Chapter 1, and it will surprise you. Text Publishing was kind enough to send me a copy, and a full review was sent to subscribers at https://www.keepingupwiththepenguins.com