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Fungi and the Coming Pandemic
by Emily Monosson
A prescient warning about the mysterious and deadly world of fungi―and how to avert further loss across species, including our own.
Fungi are everywhere. Most are harmless; some are helpful. A few are killers. Collectively, infectious fungi are the most devastating agents of disease on earth, and a fungus that can persist in the environment without its host is here to stay. In Blight, Emily Monosson documents how trade, travel, and a changing climate are making us all more vulnerable to invasion. Populations of bats, frogs, and salamanders face extinction. In the Northwest, America's beloved national parks are covered with the spindly corpses of whitebark pines. Food crops are under siege, threatening our coffee, bananas, and wheat―and, more broadly, our global food security. Candida auris, drug-resistant and resilient, infects hospital patients and those with weakened immune systems. Coccidioides, which lives in drier dusty regions, may cause infection in apparently healthy people. The horrors go on.
Yet prevention is not impossible. Tracing the history of fungal spread and the most recent discoveries in the field, Monosson meets scientists who are working tirelessly to protect species under threat, and whose innovative approaches to fungal invasion have the potential to save human lives. Delving into case studies at once fascinating, sobering, and hopeful, Blight serves as a wake-up call, a reminder of the delicate interconnectedness of the natural world, and a lesson in seeing life on our planet with renewed humility and awe.
"Monosson is a skilled writer, capable of translating complicated scientific topics into compelling layperson's terms...She crafts a thrilling narrative." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Monosson commendably serves as a medical Paul Revere by persuasively warning us that dangerous fungi are already causing havoc...Neglecting these emerging organisms is truly hazardous to health."
―Booklist (starred review)
"Monosson keeps the discussions of fungi biology accessible, and the battery of case studies of fungal outbreaks underscores the urgency of the threat. This wake-up call should not go unheeded." —Publishers Weekly
"A book this endlessly fascinating, by an author whose astonishing zeal for detail makes her knowledge feel bottomless, is the crystal clear kind of science writing we need to face the changes we've wrought on this planet." ―Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Countdown
"Monosson brings eloquence and clarity to her enigmatic subject: the often invisible existence of fungi and the incredible ways it influences and impacts our lives. In turn fascinating and frightening, Blight will alarm readers in the best possible way―by changing how they look at the world around them." ―M. R. O'Connor, author of Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World
This information about Blight was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Emily Monosson is the author of Natural Defense, Unnatural Selection, and Evolution in a Toxic World. She is a member of the Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She lives in Montague, Massachusetts.
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