Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould

Wonderful Life is pretty, well, wonderful. If your curiosity about the Burgess Shale or the weird and wonderful beings of the Cambrian period needs sating, this book should more than do it. It is quite dense — Gould may have been a popular science writer, but he didn’t dumb it down — but it’s worth the time investment.

It’s true that some of the reconstructions of these beings have been challenged since Gould wrote, but it’s still worth reading for his overall theory about the development of life, and much important (and correct) detail about the Burgess Shale.

Rating: /5

Virus X, Frank Ryan

This is a bit out of date now, in that there are emerging viruses it doesn’t touch on and scientific advances in studying them that it doesn’t include, but it’s still a fascinating glimpse into some of the emerging diseases of the last century or so, how the outbreaks were handled and what they mean. If you’re read David Quammen’s Spillover, it’s somewhat along the same lines, discussing many of the same diseases; it’s been a while since I read Spillover, so I found this a good refresher on the diseases mentioned and the early stages of their emergence.

If you find this whole subject a little stressful, this won’t exactly be reassuring; it does show that the world simply doesn’t have the infrastructure to deal with the kind of pandemics that are coming our way. We’ve been lucky so far — I’m honestly shocked there’s been nothing worse since this book was published.

Rating: 4/5

The Philadelphia Chromosome, Jessica Wapner

If you’ve read The Emperor of All Maladies, you already know a little about the Philadelphia chromosome, but this book goes into more depth on it and focuses exclusively on this form of cancer, bringing in some case studies and describing the scientists and physicians who were intimately involved in the research and the long road to a treatment for the cancer caused by the Philadelphia chromosomal translocation. It’s a fascinating story and well written — actually oddly gripping, if you find research like this interesting. Like a lot of the best books describing research, it made me want to get out there and do some of my own, and maybe someday be as instrumental in saving lives as some of the scientists mentioned.

I was asked with The Emperor of All Maladies if I thought the book would be a stressful read for someone who is afraid of cancer. So the same report for The Philadelphia Chromosome: I think some of the treatments and symptoms described are pretty awful, as you’d expect, but it doesn’t tend to get deeply personal or emotional about them, and the cancer caused by this particular mutation is actually extremely treatable. You might even find it a good place to jump on with learning more about cancer to demystify and undemonise it a little for that reason.

Rating: 4/5

Restless Creatures, Matt Wilkinson

The topic of this book — evolutionary biology from the point of view of the importance of locomotion — is fascinating, and I can’t actually point to anything about the writing or structure that bothers me. I just found that I didn’t enjoy it. Part of that is probably because I’m not interested in the physics, and though I think HOX genes are fascinating, I’m already aware of them and the homology in them between species.

I think some of the sections on the physics of motion genuinely dragged a little; if you’re into physics, it’s nothing new, and if you’re not, then it’s not exactly the most fascinating stuff. It’s an interesting topic, and Wilkinson writes pretty clearly, so that might be a personal thing.

Rating: 2/5

How the Zebra Got Its Stripes, Léo Grasset, trans. Barbara Mellor

This book is admittedly slight: if you already know your evolutionary biology, then you’re not likely to learn anything from this in terms of the principles. However, if you’re not, these stories demonstrate the points well, and even if you do know the principles, you can learn some new facts. Which you may or may not find interesting, depending on how much you cringe at the description of how hyenas give birth!

It’s an entertaining read, and I was glad I picked it up, even though it didn’t exactly take me long to digest.

Rating: 3/5

The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Emperor of All Maladies used to scare me. Just the idea of a whole book about cancer kinda gave me the heebie-jeebies. Generalised anxiety disorder and three grandparents dead of cancer will do that, I guess. Luckily, I’ve turned a corner and reading this just fascinated me — my only regret being that it isn’t quite up to date on the latest in cancer treatments, stuff which I know about from my medical transcription work that isn’t always even past the phase II trial stage yet. The way the doctors I transcribe talk about that… well, I’d love to know more.

Still, there’s a lot here: a history of what we’ve known about cancer from ancient history to the time of publication, with meticulous footnotes. It’s illustrated with some case studies, patients of Mukherjee’s, which help to contextualise the treatments mentioned or the cancers being studied. His fascination with the disease is clear, but also his compassion for his patients, though I never found it sentimentalised.

It’s a little dense and probably slow going if you’re not used to reading non-fiction, or if the subject matter is unfamiliar. I was delighted that I could follow pretty much all of it, even when he discussed statistics (the bane of my biology degree); I found it pretty impossible to put down, because I had to keep finding out more. As the best non-fiction always does with me, I ended the book by wanting Mukherjee’s job.

Rating: 5/5

Bones of Contention: The Archaeopteryx Scandals, Paul Chambers

I never quite realised before I read this how much controversy Archaeopteryx stirred up, or the petty quarrels between opposing professors and palaeontologists. I found it interesting that Chambers gave serious consideration to the ideas of people who say that birds aren’t descended directly from dinosaurs; as he says, some of the arguments against that direct relationship do make sense and are worth considering, even though there’s also plenty of evidence on the other side.

Altogether, this is a great analysis of Archaeopteryx, its impact, and what it symbolised. There’s mini biographies of various scientists, including Huxley (Darwin’s Bulldog), and some of them are surprisingly fascinating. In a way, this is more about arguments about evolution via natural selection and “missing links” than it is specifically about Archaeopteryx, although there is plenty of info here about the fossil itself as well.

Readable and interesting, though at times there’s a bit too much about the feuds of ridiculous scientists who just wanted to prove each other wrong.

Rating: 4/5

Suspicious Minds, Rob Brotherton

Suspicious Minds is not a book about conspiracy theories in the sense of recounting different conspiracy theories for the sake of convincing you of them, or indeed of debunking them. Instead it examines what makes people so susceptible to believing in conspiracies, with a good deal of sympathy — it can be tempting to ask what on earth some people are even thinking to believe the outrageous things they do, but Brotherton doesn’t laugh at them too much. Instead, he shows why the human brain is so prone to believing these things, so easy to influence.

It mostly wasn’t surprising to me, but it’s a good summary of what we know about conspiracy thinking, and it’s a healthy reminder to mind what you believe yourself lest you end up exclaiming that the naked emperor is wearing the most fabulous clothes.

It’s a Bloomsbury Sigma book, though, and I’m relatively unsurprised that it’s good; they tend to be very readable and cover interesting topics. I’m just about at the point where I’m willing to pick them up regardless of the subject.

Rating: 4/5

The Viral Storm, Nathan Wolfe

If you’re already familiar with pop science books about diseases, this isn’t really going to surprise you any. It’s competently written, though at times the statistics are a little off (as another reviewer pointed out). I don’t agree that he’s too unduly alarmist, though; our current environmental and social conditions are just about perfect for a pandemic (viral or otherwise) to sweep through the world’s population. If you doubt it, The Great Influenza by John M. Barry should disabuse you of that notion, rapidly. And our world is more interconnected now, not less.

I hoped that this might be a little more in depth, given Wolfe being a biologist and all, but there’s nothing that really elevates it above other pop science books available. It’s honestly rather forgettable.

Rating: 3/5