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BREATHLESS

David Quammen

The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

The story of the worldwide scientific quest to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and make possible the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
Breathless is the story of SARS-CoV-2 and its fierce journey through the human population, as seen by the scientists who study its origin, its ever-changing nature, and its capacity to kill us. David Quammen expertly shows how strange new viruses emerge from animals into humans as we disrupt wild ecosystems, and how those viruses adapt to their human hosts, sometimes causing global catastrophe. He explains why this coronavirus will probably be a "forever virus," destined to circulate among humans and bedevil us endlessly, in one variant form or another. As scientists labor to catch it, comprehend it, and control it, with their high-tech tools and methods, the virus finds ways of escape.

Based on interviews with nearly one hundred scientists, including leading virologists in China and around the world, Quammen explains that:
- Infectious disease experts saw this pandemic coming
- Some scientists, for more than two decades, warned that "the next big one" would be caused by a changeable new virus - very possibly a coronavirus - but such warnings were ignored for political or economic reasons
- The precise origins of this virus may not be known for years, but some clues are compelling, and some suppositions can be dismissed
- And much more.

Breathless takes you inside the frantic international effort to understand and control SARS-CoV-2 as if we were peering over the shoulders of the brilliant scientists who led the chase.

David Quammen's sixteen previous books include The Tangled Tree, The Song of the Dodo, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, and Spillover, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Premio Letterario Merck, in Rome. He has written for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Outside, among other magazines, and is a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award. Quammen shares a home in Bozeman, Montana, with his wife, Betsy Gaines Quammen, author of American Zion, and with two Russian wolfhounds, a cross-eyed cat, and a rescue python. Visit him at DavidQuammen.com.
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Published 2022-10-04 by Simon & Schuster

Comments

Three years into the pandemic, Mr. Quammen, a prolific science journalist and author, uncovers all sorts of details about the efforts to investigate the spread of Covid and discern the features that made it so menacing... An engagingly written chronicle of scientific inquiry. Read more...

Scientists warned for years that a coronavirus could trigger the next big pandemic, but those warnings were largely ignored. Science writer David Quammen joins host Krys Boyd to discuss what we know about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and how it spread so quickly in the human population. Plus, we'll meet the virologists trying to head off future pandemics. Read more...

Today's Ranking on Amazon (3 weeks before publication with no publicity) (Sept. 17, 2022): #8 in Virology #34 in Zoology (Books) #78 in Biology (Books)

An authoritative new history of Covid-19 and its predecessors... [Quammen] constructs a masterful account of viral evolution culminating in Covid-19... Unsettling global health news brilliantly delivered by an expert. Read more...

A masterful scientific detective story... Quammen delivers a demanding and essential book about COVID-19. Read more...

I think [Quammen is] the best science writer alive... Quammen is a skilled explainer, laying out, for instance, the intricate workings of RNA viruses without condescending to his audience or leading it too far into the weeds. Read more...

A rapt, whirlwind tour of the scientific landscape behind the experts and professionals working to stop Covid-19, Quammen masterfully untangles the often mired narratives surrounding the virus... [An] illuminating read. Read more...

So good... [A] tour de force... A luminous, passionate account of the defining crisis of our time - and the unprecedented international response to it. Read more...

BREATHLESS was one of Kirkus Best Nonfiction Books of the Year New York Times Notable Books NPR Best Books of 2022 Science News Our favorite science books of 2022 TIME The 100 Must-Read Books of 2022

A viral howdunnit that is pacy and unafraid to educate readers... Perhaps the real value of this book is that Quammen brings a naturalist's eye to these debates. At the end, one is left with a deep appreciation of the diversity of nature and the serendipity of natural selection, which every day is shuffling and rearranging the genomes of viruses in ways that scientists can only begin to imagine. Read more...

"Next generation" booster jabs for COVID-19 became available in the UK this week. But no one expects them to quash the coronavirus. So, how can science get ahead of the virus? It's a question science writer David Quammen grapples with in his new book "Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus." Quammen talks with The World's host Marco Werman. Read more...

Il nuovo libro di David Quammen Read more...

Science journalist Quammen recounts in page-turning detail the scientific response to the Covid-19 pandemic... A must-read for anyone looking to get a better handle on the pandemic so far. Read more...

Breathless is as close to authoritative history - from the virus's origins to vaccines and variants - as we have, told through scientists involved, and the signature ease of Quammen's prose. It reads like a thriller in real-time.

Today's ranking on Amazon (Jan. 17, 2023): #8 in Forensic Medicine #19 in Virology #39 in Zoology

UK: Bodley Head ; Chinese (simpl.): China Times ; Dutch: Atlas-Contact ; French: Albin Michel ; Italian: Adelphi ; Japanese: Hakuyosha ; Polish: Zysk I S-KA ; Portuguese (Brazil): Companhia das Letras ; Portuguese (P): Editora Objetival ; Spanish (W): Debate

Breathless presents the sweeping scientific story of the pandemic, connecting puzzle pieces that at the time had felt so out of place. Read more...

The most authorative account yet of SARS-CoV-2 and its spread. To boot, Breathless is full of the lyrical prose and the kind of compelling narrative drama that has become Quammen's signature. Read more...

BREATHLESS was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Awards Read more...

A gripping, first-draft-of-history account of a virus's first two years on Earth, pieced together from various lines of scientific evidence and then enlivened by metaphor.

A supernova among science journalists and lauded author of The Song of the Dodo and Spillover now tackles the most sprawling news story on the planet, the Covid-19 pandemic... Quammen's narrative finesse is peerless as he meticulously dissects the waves of mass infections, Wuhan to Alpha to Delta to Omicron. Read more...