Riddled with Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex, and the Parasites That Make Us Who We Are

Riddled with Life covers the broad subject of microbial and parasitic life. More accurately, it is lovingly dedicated to these marvelous creatures, and the book details how they can keep us healthy or make us sick, and everything in between.

It is written in simple terms and is quite an easy and engaging read, and it's very informative to boot. The chapters are long but divided into smaller sections which are usually only 1-5 pages, so it gives the book that breezy convenient feeling. It's one of those science books that is just pleasant to read, even if it does cover subjects like animal mating choices and parasitic worms that control the minds of spiders.

The only reason I'm giving the book 4 stars instead of 5 is because she goes a show more little bit overboard with farfetched theory, which is mostly only a problem in the latter half when she focuses on animal behavior. She even directly contradicts herself a couple times, which always seems to be the case with evolutionary biologists. You really have to take the more theoretical sections with a grain of salt.

Still, she does a good job of cautioning the reader when she is discussing things that are unproven or anecdotal, and she even mentions in her Acknowledgements the "outlandish speculation in these pages." So I forgive her. The book was a joy to read, and that's all that matters. Highly recommended. show less

Dr. Zuk is first and foremost a terrific parasitologist. The portions of the book that Zuk spends discussing her own Ph.D. thesis and her own research, especially regarding sexual selection. The central portion of the book from about page 80 to page 180 is fascinating & probably should have been released as a stand-alone book -- it is focused, it flows and the topic is fascinating (these are the chapters on sexual selection, infection differences between the sexes and sexually transmitted diseases.)

The first 80 pages drag, and are covered both more interestingly and in more detail in hundreds of other popular science books. Also, the topics in these chapters (heterozygote advantage, hygeine hypothesis) have little to do with Zuk's show more central themes. Theis portion of the book also is infested with what Zuk seems to think are wry little asides, which grate terribly. The concluding paragraphs are interesting, but lack the compulsive readable of the earlier chapters. show less

This is the main book of the moment. Marlene Zuk is an evolutionary biologist and is making all kinds of fascinating connections between diseases and why they exist in us. For instance, cystic fibrosis which eventually means an early death or lung transplant for most of its sufferers who have inherited two copies of the gene, may have arisen because those with (one copy of) the gene are much less susceptible to losing liquid in a cholera attack. And its the loss of fluid that causes death very quickly in cholera.

I enjoyed the chapter on sex for procreation being a reaction to bacteria and found the last chapter on whether we truly own our personalities or if, at least some of the time, they are either a reaction to or manipulated by show more one of the bugs that inhabit us. show less

There's a huge ick factor in this book, which deals in worms and other parasites of humanity, as well as the evolution of immune systems and infectious agents. The science is fascinating, and the conclusions amply supported by Darwinian reasoning. Perhaps we've been too hasty in trying to rid ourselves of every possible disease and parasitic hanger-on.

This was fairly interesting, but it got to be a bit much by the end.

I read this in German, and I suspect that the style problems that caused me to mark it down somewhat are due to the translation. There are also several places where a negative sentence only makes sense in context if it should be positive. The 'breezy convenient feeling' and 'sense of humor' mentioned by other reviewers don't really come across. There are several places where a sentence seems to be fully out of place, but I suspect that the connection is actually there in English but the idiom either is not translatable or not recognized by the translator. Or perhaps these don't come over because the translator is taking the whole thing too seriously.

A fun, readable explanation of the role that other organisms have played and continue to play in human evolution and health.

The book is an excellent and easy to read and appreciate explination of Darwinian medicine and sexual evolution. The essential message of this book is that, without the help of viruses, bacterium, fungi and parasites, we would never have evolved into the adaptable, advanced, sexual beings we are today. It also presents the message that it is vital to understand the evolutionary mechanisms that brought us to this point in our development so we can better treat patients with various ailments. By understanding how the body reacts to and uses microbes, we can better treat infections and autoimmune disorders.

This is an excellent book for people who don't have a strong science background. Those with medicine, evolution, or genetics in their show more backgrounds will spend most of their time reading reviews of what they already know. But it's still worth the read. show less