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May 27, 2010

Melody rated it:

This book brought back the early 80s in hallucinatory detail. I remember when we first heard about Gay Cancer, and how hard it was to get any decent information. I remember when the world got wobbly and my friends were dying and it seemed like nobody cared. I was quite certain that, given my penchant for fey boys, I wouldn't be around to see the turn of the century. I vividly remember making up file folders for 1989 for my job and thinking that the ones for 1990 would be in someone else's handwr More...

0 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jul 15, 2011

Emily rated it:

Attempting to write a book that encompasses the enormity of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's, while also capturing the unforgivable INDIFFERENCE of the American medical community and the nation in general would seem highly impossible--if not ludicrous, right? Randy Shilts not only attempted this feat, he hit the ball out of the park when he attempted to re-enact those years in which AIDS was around every bend and no one, literally NO ONE seemed concerned about it.
Initially, labeled "G More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2007

Katie rated it:

If you're seeking a comprehensive history of the AIDS epidemic, look no further. Written as a detective story, this must read book covers all aspects of the disease, from history, to journalism, to politics, to people. Randy Shilts, in his thorough investigative report, highlights the many blunders along the way, blunders that are unbelievable in retrospect. It is not an anti-Republican rant, rather it is a very fair assessment of the collective failure of all entities involved. Because the More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 12, 2008

laaaaames rated it:

This book is really important, considering:

1. We are likely not safe from another random crazy deadly virus that will catch us offguard.

2. You have probably underestimated what an asshole Reagan was.

3. You might be going to see Milk soon and would like to read of some of what happened after him in SF politics.

4. Prop 8 effing passed, proving our society has farther to come than perhaps we realized.

Points deducted because apparently the More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2008

E rated it:

Shilts writes at the end of And The Band Played On that the book is a work of journalism and that there has been no fictionalization, yet goes on to state that he reconstructs scenes and conversations, albeit based on interviews and other research. To me this process necessarily entails some degree of fictionalization, or at the very least, a departure from an 'objective' history of AIDS in Europe and America. Shilts can hardly be faulted for this given his professional and personal immersion in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 17, 2011

Larry rated it:

I recall being so incensed at the failure of common decency across every part of the 'establishment' spectrum that I think I can trace much of my continuing skepticism of our political process directly to Randy's work.

I actually think this book should be required reading at college level for any political science class that is examining the flaws of what our system can become. Eisenhower http://youtu.be/8y06NSBBRtY was right in his grave warnings about the danger inherent in the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 20, 2008

Ayne rated it:

This landmark work is a detailed investigative report and eventual scathing indictment of the social and political forces that helped contribute to the tragic and rapid spread of the AIDS epidemic in its earliest years. Twenty years later, it still stands as one of the most important books on its topic.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2009

Sasha rated it:

I think everyone should read this book. Seriously. Randy Shilts presents the epic tale of the beginning of the AIDs epidemic through the eyes of health officials, scientists, doctors, politicians, patients, and the media. It is an incredible story of how America willfully ignored the spread of AIDs until it was too late to stem. He uses all the interviews and research that he did as a journalist for the SF Chronicle who covered the epidemic full time for years. The book travels all over the More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 24, 2010

Jaime rated it:

As I read this book, I couldn't help asking myself, over and over, how people could possibly have let it all happen like that. How could the bathhouses stay open so long? Why was almost no one willing to use a condoms or curtail their activities? Why were federal and local governments so unwilling to do anything?

From this late vantage point, it is easy to wonder that. Having seen AIDS, if there was to be another disease like it in sneakiness and severity, we'd likely catch on quicker More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 25, 2011

Lynn rated it:

Simply put, one of the best books I've ever read, and probably the most gripping nonfiction I've ever come across. Told in straightforward, chronological order, with a mix of personal portraits and political, medical, and social reporting, this traces the first many years of the spread of the AIDS virus. It is a fascinating, but horrifying account of the (lack of) response to the disease during its brisk progression from rare and mysterious affliction to a much more common, but still marginali More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 13, 2011

Mark rated it:

I didn't finish this. Reads like bad journalism. The story is, of course, tragic, but the various accounts ring false like the stories that actors tell. For example, we find: "On a hunch, Gottlieb twisted some arms to convince pathologists to take a small scraping of the patient's lung tissue through a nonsurgical maneuver." OK, so the author isn't a doctor, but 1. pathologists don't do endobronchial biopsies, pulmonologists do, 2.nobody has to twist a pulmonologists arm to do an en More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 06, 2011

Max rated it:

While I didn't finish this book, I found the first half of it very enjoyable. It's basically epidemiology that reads like a detective story, Shilts describes the mystery of the early days of HIV/AIDS through the eyes of the doctors, patients and policymakers involved.

While the book was well-written, very well-researched, and mostly enjoyable, I did have a couple of issues with it. First, stylistically, Shilts method of switching around between the many different characters is effec More...

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Jan 23, 2011

Sandra rated it:

This is a doorstop book that was recommended to me by my boss when I was 21 years old. I hunted it down, and now re-read it every 2 years. It is by far the most comprehensive study of the AIDS virus and its impact on the world (particularly the US) since its discovery. Randy Shilts covers multiple continents and scenarios including but not limited to the reaction of the US blood bank industry, politics and the widely acknowledged but disputed patient zero. Throughout it all the tragedy is t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 17, 2010

Dawn rated it:

Just finished this after watching the film again. I say "finished," but I did skip around in the book quite a bit. Shilts' ability to juggle multiple locations, characters, and countries is certainly admirable, and it's amazing that it isn't more confusing. He uses excellent cliffhangers, but the short sections on most of the pages, and the volume of medical emergencies in this book -- as much as I enjoy medical mysteries -- caused me to thumb through. Stilts covers the early AIDS cris More...

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Aug 14, 2009

Will rated it:

This is a gripping, captivating, terrifying book. It is not a traditional history. Instead, it is a series of short vignettes, snapshots of various people's lives between the early 70s and 1986 or so, as AIDS slowly emerges and proceeds to make life hellish for sundry unlucky people. The fact that much of it is set in San Francisco made it all the more interesting for me.

The book has a detective element, as various researchers and scientists frantically try to figure out what the di More...

3 comments like

Aug 02, 2009

Laini rated it:

There are a few things in my life that I can point to as having monumentally changed it.

#1, As a child raised by a racist mother, seeing the movie "Mississippi Burning" for the first time. I bawled my eyes out when I realized the extent of my ignorance of my black brothers and sisters and feeling utterly ashamed that I did not know more about the civil rights movement. Because someone I cared about had intentionally seen to it that I hadn't learned about it. Because watchi More...

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May 27, 2009

Douglas rated it:

"And the Band Played On" is a must read for anyone interested in LGBT rights and history as well as health and public policy. Shilts weaves together a number of different narratives following doctors, patients, politicians, researchers and activists during the first five years of the AIDS epidemic in America. It's a deeply saddening and enraging book, analyzing the mistakes made by everyone from the politicians that withheld research funding to gay activists who refused to acknowledg More...

1 comment like

Nov 30, 2011

Laura rated it:

This is an incredibly comprehensive telling of the rise of the AIDS epidemic, and despite its being a very long telling (600 pages), I could not put it down. And the Band Played On is fascinating look at how the various players--government, gay community, media, doctors, etc--impacted the emergence, response and treatment of AIDS. The author (a San Francisco journalist) is an interesting story by himself--even though he learned of the blood test that could tell him if he had the disease early on More...

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Sep 27, 2011

Linda rated it:

This was the first real "grown-up" non-fiction book I ever read -- recommended to me while I was still in high school by my father, of all people. It's an excellent chronicle of the early days of the AIDS epidemic, as it was first being recognized. Along the way Shilts documents the bias and indifference of the medical profession to the odd health complaints of a "subculture", the heroic efforts of a few lonely but committed stalwarts fighting an uphill battle to bring attent More...

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Mar 25, 2011

Sophie rated it:

This book had been sitting on my shelves for years before I finally read it. I remember reading a review back on LibraryThing, where someone described as one of the best pieces of non-fiction they had ever read. Since it was about a period and a subject I knew little about but was curious to learn more, I got a copy. But then, it just never was the right time. I actually picked it up every so often but never managed to read more than the first couple of pages. This time, however, it was differen More...

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Mar 22, 2011

Ashley is currently reading it

(non fiction)
although i am still currently reading this extremely long book i would still like to give a review f what i have read so far. the book "and the band played on" is a bit mature i have to say but i think i am ready to read the rest of it. this book is about the ignorance of a country, the idea of over looking a disease, and the death of many because some refused to accept people because of their sexuality and help them. it is about the AIDS epidemic. it tells snipits More...

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Jan 02, 2012

Shannon rated it:

Meticulously researched and expertly humanized history of the rise and spread of the AIDS epidemic in Reagan-era America. More bureaucracy, pettiness, politics, personality conflicts, judgments, ignorance and apathy than you can believe. And still somehow, the activists and scientists labored on to identify, contain and stop the virus. Epic in scope and heartbreaking to read. You know how it ends, but you keep hoping against hope for a better outcome.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 03, 2010

Jamie rated it:

Second time around, this book was still absolutely infuriating. It was absurdly well-written and fulfills Shilts's goal: it makes you realize the hopelessness of the history of AIDS and how a lack of caring and funding is what made it so hopeless. With better government funding and less politicking, the AIDS epidemic could have been much less destructive.

That said, I definitely noticed the bias Shilts has in my second reading. He has his thesis, and he doesn't deviate from it. I More...

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Jan 14, 2011

Karen rated it:

I actually read this back in College at San Francisco State. I consider it required reading for

A: anyone old enough to have, or is having, sex. With anyone.

B: everyone over the age of 18.

Why? Because the hard fact of reality is that HIV/AIDS is pandemic. If you do not truly understand this disease, what it is, what it does, what it means, for EVERYONE you are signing your own death warrant.

It does not matter if you are not gay.

It does not More...

1 comment like

Nov 11, 2007

Cara rated it:

I had to search around online to find out why this book is famous, because it is one big piece of crapola. There are some compelling storylines about the men in SF and NY who are first hit by the virus, and their slow realization of the magnitude of the horror to come. But mostly it's fragmented hearsay and authorial judgement calls disguised as journalism. Nay!

1 comment like

Feb 13, 2011

Kristin rated it:

This book shed a whole new light on an epidemic that has been around for my entire life. I had no idea about it's shocking beginnings. I think many people of my generation and younger generations are blind to the startling inadequacies of our nation's response to this tragedy and the politics that caused so many deaths. As citizens of this great nation we have an obligation to hold our leaders responsible for thier actions (or inactions).

I was born in 1980, and was brought up in a f More...

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Aug 25, 2011

Jesse rated it:

A strange book-- exhaustively researched and detailed, yet written in the turgid, melodramatic style of an airport thriller. Possibly TOO detailed, it can frequently be tiring in its attention to the tiniest details of funding squabbles between various government, public health, and medical agencies, though a valuable resource that is uniformly crushing. No group of people comes out of this book looking as though they weren't partly responsible for the AIDS epidemic's terrible destruction. Reaga More...

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May 31, 2009

Erin rated it:

Reading this book initially was like reading a book about the voyage of the Titanic-- the knowledge of the impending disaster made me cringe. As the book progressed though, the collective inaction of the government agencies in the face of the AIDS epidemic made my stomach turn. There's one line in the book which I especially identified with, "It had never crossed Rick Walsh's mind that politics had something to do with medicine. Now he knew better."

Randy Shilts's methodica More...

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Sep 12, 2011

Scott rated it:

Excellent historical perspective of the AIDS crisis/epidemic. Shilts tells the story from the beginning in a timeline structure that takes the reader to the late 80's when the epidemic was in full swing. I would recommend this book to anybody. The reader is treated to a rich story of how AIDS destroyed the newly "liberated" gay community and the level of discrimination that was applied to AIDS patients. You also see how the community fought change that seemed to limit the hard gained " More...

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Sep 04, 2011

Kathie rated it:

Loaded with detail and elaborate research, this book was a superb account of the epidemic of my time. Having lived and worked at a major pharmaceutical company involved with research and development of the HIV/AIDS testing, including The Western Blot, it meant a lot to finally understand what was happening in the world prior to, during and after the test was available. I worked in Customer Service, I traveled to Newark and was told to "burn your clothes" after visiting an AIDS clinic. More...

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