Where the Germs Are

by Nicholas Bakalar

Book Overview

A guided tour through the strange and sometimes dangerous microscopic worldGerms are everywhere-in our intestines and on our skin as well as on kitchen counters, public toilets, doorknobs, and just... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0760790019
• ISBN13: 9780760790014
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Interesting and valuable information, well-presented

The photo on the cover somehow hints at the sometimes ironic expression within. The cover shows a fifties housewife in black heels, nylons, lipstick, a modest hairdo and a house dress covered by an apron mopping her kitchen floor. She is smiling with pride. Her squeaky-clean persona represents the germaphobe in all of us--a class of humanity to which I belong and to which science writer Bakalar has aimed his book. Her pleased sense that her sparkling kitchen is largely germ-free is of course a delusion. Read and be revolted!As far as readability goes, this is the best general-information book on germs that I have read, and I have read several. What Bakalar does so very well is inform, period. He also has a witty and easy flowing style that makes the pages turn. He is a writer who loves to explain how the microbial world of disease works. He likes to turn away misconceptions and debunk urban myths without taking himself too seriously. He can be slyly funny as when he notes that house mice "are in general not a reservoir of serious human illness," but that "any restaurant that allows them to frolic in the presence of diners is likely to be out of business soon." Or when he identifies electrocuting insect traps that "may actually spread germs into the air" as "the kind that produce that satisfying buzz every time they kill a fly." (p. 197)He can also be profound. Consider this from page 15: "Viruses, bacteria, archaea, prions, protozoa, and fungi all exist in nature. Disease does not. Disease is a human invention, not a phenomenon that exists out there apart from us." He adds that from the point of view of the disease agent, "the infection is merely life." And indeed, "From the point of view of some organisms, human beings themselves are a disease." He notes that tigers, for example, have a bad case of "humans."One of the myths that he debunks that I had long believed was that the recycled air in passenger airplanes was a significant cause of disease. Turns out that in older airplanes such as DC-9s and 727s the air is not recycled at all but drawn entirely from outside the plane. In newer airplanes "half the cabin air is recirculated" but it is filtered better and refreshed more often than in office buildings. (pp. 209-210)Chapter headings include The Contaminated Kitchen, Toilet Training, Kids and Microbes, Microbes and Your Sex Life, Pets and Their Germs, Water and What's in It, Germs in Public Places, etc. Bakalar ends the book with a chapter on products you can buy at the store that may or may not kill germs and improve your health. Naturally all sorts of ugly microbes make their appearance including plague, West Nile virus, smallpox, TB, cholera, etc. as well as some not so charming vectors: mice, rats, mosquitoes, ticks, bats, fleas, and their brethren, cockroaches, flies and things that creep in the night.There is a 15-page glossary and there are footnotes arranged by chapter (a dense paragraph for each) at the back of th

Good reading but no surprises

I disagree with the first reviewer who gave this book a low rating. I think it's a pretty good overview of the details of which germs cause what illness, and how they're spread.I think the author does a nice job of handling what could be a highly technical subject. The book is comprehensible to the layperson, yet still difficult enough that you probably ought to have had college-level sciences in order to understand its complexity.I was hoping that the book (especially considering the picture of the kitchen on the cover) would offer me something new regarding keeping germs and illness away from my family. However, it does not go far beyond the standard prevention tactics of good handwashing and modern sanitation. Good handwashing is particularly emphasized.Diseases and illnesses such as smallpox and lyme disease and West Nile and herpes are handled in detail. It's a useful and factual introduction to bacteriology and contagious diseases, and includes some historical references, in a readable text.