Written in a conversational narrative style that made the technical subject interesting and approachable, I really enjoyed this book. I found the earlier history (up to WWII) the most fascinating of the aspect as very obvious things like the fact that the history of transfusion is only about 75 (now closer to 85) years old as compared to the 2500 year old history of blood letting blew my mind--especially when you consider that it's now pretty much standard and accepted practice. Later--into the standards and quality war, while an important public-policy topic (especially given the issue with AIDs-tainted blood products that became the highlight of the final chapters) was almost too "current" to captivate me and change my thinking the way the early stuff was.

The author's analogy as well of comparing blood and its component costs to oil and its component costs was a big attention-grabber, and actually made me look forward to my next "DONATION."