Tom Ireland

The story is rich but poorly told, spattered with weak jokes. And he has a tin ear for language, mixing bacterium and bacteria, sometimes talking of viruses when he means phages and vice versa. Reveals his ignorance with a footnote on the word "peregrination", which he considers "exotic" It's in a French title for goodness' sake. Has he never heard of a peregrine falcon? It brought my reading to a halt. If you're looking for humour in science writing try Robert Sapolsky and many more.

This was a pretty good book.

I knew nothing about bacteriophages, a class of viruses that specifically targets bacteria. Ireland did a great job of educating me about the biochemistry of these virions (a word he also taught me). He's caused me to think differently about the web of life on Earth. I had no idea that 10^31 different viruses exist (!!!). I knew about horizontal gene transfer among bacteria, but not how virions drive and mediate it.

I'd have given the book a fifth star had it been show more a little more tightly edited on the personalities of early workers in the field. The history is interesting, but the science is much more so, to me. The internecine scientific squabbles mattered, but could have been covered in fewer pages, I think.

If you're curious about science in general, worried about antibacterial resistance in medicine, and just like to learn new stuff, you'll enjoy this book. show less