After 70 pages or so, I refused to keep on reading. Too cumbersome and an excesively elaborated vocabulary disencouraged me. At first I thought it was similar to The hot Zone in its style (which I really enjoyed) when the author first relates Justine's journey through sleep disease. But it changes and furthe becomes a descriptive book of data that does not engage. Maybe the book inproves after 100 pages, but I couldn't arrive. ( )

Good book but gets increasingly preachy as the book progresses. Definitely not one to read within 2hours either side of a meal! Bleaaaaagh! ( )

Here is another fascinating book by Carl Zimmer, clearly one of my new favorite science writers. The subtitle of this book is Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures, and it is appropriate. Just as our knowledge of evolutionary biology is exploding, so, too is our knowledge of parasitology. Once considered a problem of Africa and the low-lying equatorial countries of the world, we now know that parasites are everywhere and they play a large role in the development and evolution of the planet. For example, evolutionary biologists have had a hard time coming up with a good justification for sex. (Other than as a justification for high-speed Internet connections in the home, I mean.) Parasitologists now have evidence that sexual reproduction is a strategy for dealing with parasitic attacks. And where else could you learn about the anal cannon of the leaf-rolling caterpillar, which shoots digestive waste up to two feet away, thereby avoiding the parasitic wasp that is attracted to the smell? If you are a parent, you will find threatening stories in here that will surely keep the children in line! ( )

One of the best non-fiction books I've read in years. I could not put it down. At a party recently, I found myself surrounded by PhD level marine biologists who were hanging on my every word as I described some of the parasites listed in the book. My favorite is the one that eats the tongue of a fish and then positions itself in the fish's mouth as a replacement tongue, only taking whatever food it needs and then helping the fish to swallow the rest to keep it alive. Some of the parasites have only been described and understood in the last 5-6 years, and yet this class of organism makes up a significant fraction of the Earth's biosphere. The author takes the reader through their evolution, biology, and ecology in an engaging, easy to read and digest form.

Highly recommended. ( )

One of the chief features of this book is that it focuses not only on parasites that affect humans but on parasites that affect all animals. To be clear, they focused on non-virus, non-bacteria -- that is, only one-celled or multi-celled eukaryotic parasites. The book tells a great many fascinating stories, including how parasitism could have influenced the evolution of sex, how they elude the immune system, and how completely they may take over their host's lives. Parasites that eat your flesh? That's old hat. What about parasites that castrate crabs and create their own faux egg sac so the crabs, like any good crustacean mothers, carefully distribute the parasites in the sea? Or the parasites that are brightly colored and climb into snails' transparent antennae to draw the attention of hungry birds? Or (and this I could hardly believe until I saw the shocking photograph) the crustacean parasite that crawls in a fish, eats it's tongue, and then replaces the tongue moving as a tongue would but taking a bite out of every gulp. Yes, parasites are macroscopic evidence of the incredible diversity that evolution can create.

The writing of this book is certainly interesting, and I was pleased that he used metaphors that did not confuse or mislead the reader as lesser science journalists often do. The structure of the book is kind of a Parasite Story Hour, though. The stories are loosely grouped into chapters, but this book isn't quite as well crafted as Richard Rhodes' Deadly Feasts. In that book, Rhodes manages to show the arc of discovery of prions, give real depth to the people involved, and effectively communicate the nature of cutting edge scientific experiments without simplifying the concepts to a meaningless level. That piece of science journalism was a welcome surprise, but I would never hold another to such a high standard. Parasite Rex was a good read for someone like me with bizarre tastes but it's probably not for the squeamish or those with delicate stomachs. ( )

You will never lick your dirty fingers again. When you look in the mirror you don't see all the tiny parasites that live in your eyelids. They're everywhere, they're everywhere!!! This is a great book on a narrow subject. ( )

http://amiralace.blogspot.com/2007/01... ( )

http://www.peskyapostrophe.com/index.... ( )

Zimmer claims that parasites are ubiquitous on Earth, and far more sophisticated than we give them credit. They are far from being unfinished, or inferior, products of evolution. Even though Zimmer’s definition is a broad one, since he lumps bacteria and viruses together with parasites (though he doesn’t discuss these in detail), he proves them to be highly interesting. Even if we look only at the organisms that we are sure are parasites by most definitions like tapeworms or hookworms, we find that they are capable of changing the host’s DNA, reworking or evading the immune system, tricking the males into thinking they are females and spreading the parasite’s eggs, making infected prey more attractive to the predators and, consequently, more easily caught, and even changing human emotions and behaviours. They may even be responsible for the introduction of sexual reproduction in the evolution.
The theory that caught my attention was the parasite’s possible responsibility for allergies. Our immune system produces an antibody called IgE among many other types of immune response particles. It turns out that this antibody has been most probably used as a fighter of parasites for thousands of years, and now, in the absence of parasites to destroy, it overreacts and attacks its own host’s body in response to such harmless substances like pollen, or foods, causing allergies and such diseases as Crohn’s or colitis. ( )