(Pursue/Book/Track It!) Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science by Richard Preston - 3 stars

[annapi]

While the topics discussed in this book were truly fascinating, I was a bit put off by the repetition and haphazard arrangement of the book. Preston does mention in the beginning that these are articles he had previously written for other publications, but he does not make it very clear that he does not make much effort to blend them in a cohesive way. The introduction reads like a chapter on its own, which makes things a bit confusing when he goes on to the Ebola chapter. Then later he repeats the story of the mathematicians, which later is shown to tie in with the other chapters.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this book a lot. But the repetition and format did cause me to remove a star. If anyone had read this before Preston's other work, they might be turned off from reading more of his books.

[NancyJ]

Cannibals, Ebola and Mathematicians - how can I resist?

This sounds interesting, and thanks for the warning. If I know it's based on a collection of articles up front, I won't be frustrated by it, and I'll know I can jump around if I want to.

I just started a book set in Papua New Guinea about anthropologists in the early 1900's), so I'm getting curious about cannibals.

I have a couple other books about viruses and pandemics (from the Spanish Flu to today), but I might want to read this one first.

[annapi]

It's not that kind of cannibal, Nancy - it's a strange genetic disease that causes a person to cannibalize himself (so far it's only males that have been afflicted). Definitely interesting, though very distressing.

[NancyJ]

I also just discovered that the math part is about pi, which doesn't interest me except on 3.14 when we all have Pie. Darn, that was yesterday and we didn't get/make a pie!

We were so focused on the anniversary of covid shutdowns that we forgot about pi day.

[annapi]

I thought the math part was one of the most interesting parts of the book! I really enjoyed it, and recently discovered that the brothers' record was since smashed by trillions, the latest in 2020.

Though my husband says that he'd rather celebrate the other March 14 holiday, the counterpart of Valentine's day for men, steak and a bl*wj*b day.