One of my 2020 resolutions was to read one book a month for the entire year. Well, the COVID-19 quarantine has most certainly helped fulfill that goal. Below I review 6 books I have read since April, some relevant to the shutdown life, others not so much. Nonetheless, reading has been something to do to…
Category: Book Reviews
Book Review: Influenza, Dr. Jeremy Brown (2018)
To study infectious disease outbreaks, one of the first things researchers do is to sequence the genome. We did this in real time with the Ebola outbreak in 2014, we’re doing it right now with SARS-CoV-2, and we constantly do this with the influenza virus to predict when the flu season is approaching and how…
Book Review: The Hot Zone, by Richard Preston (1994)
Timely book read given the recent COVID-19 outbreak, I was first interested in reading The Hot Zone when I say the author Richard Preston speak at the annual American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conference last November. The book documents the first ever cases of outbreaks of the Ebola family of viruses, including Marburg,…
Book Review: Blitzed – Drugs in the Third Reich, by Norman Ohler (2017)
Many of us know about Germany’s massively effective Blitzkrieg operational approach in the beginning of WW2. For instance, it only took the Nazis 6 weeks to force France – a vastly superior army – to its knees and surrender. In Blitzed, Norman Ohler presents a unique perspective to this strategy: the influence of methamphetamines, heroin,…
Book Review: God & Government, by Charles Colson (2007)
Charles Colson, special counsel to President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, born-again evangelical Christian writes “God & Government” from 2007, a follow-up to his 1987 book “Kingdoms in Conflict.” I was intrigued by this book ever since 2017, when I heard an NPR interview with Colson discussing his Prison Fellowship, founded by him in…
Book Review: The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis (2018)
Round of applause for Michael Lewis on this one. Solid read. Lewis does a fantastic job of educating the reader on the immense responsibilities of several Departments and Agencies within the U.S. government that (unbeknownst to its citizens) have a massive impact in their daily lives. Lewis interviews several career public servants throughout the book,…