BUGGED

Insects have been shaping our ecological world and plant life for over 400 million years. In fact, our world is essentially run by bugs?there are 1.4 billion for every human on the planet.

Journalist David MacNeal takes us on an off-beat scientific journey that weaves together history, travel, and culture in order to define our relationship with these mini-monsters. He introduces a cast of bug-lovers -from a woman facilitating tarantula sex and an exterminator nursing bedbugs (on his own blood), to a kingpin of the black market insect trade and a "maggotologist" - who obsess over the crucial role insects play in our everyday lives.

Just like bugs, this book is global in its scope, diversity, and intrigue. Hands-on with pet beetles in Japan, releasing lab-raised mosquitoes in Brazil, beekeeping on a Greek island, or using urine and antlers as means of ancient pest control, MacNeal's quest appeals to the squeamish and brave alike. Demonstrating insects' amazingly complex mechanics, he strings together varied interactions we humans have with them, like extermination, epidemics, and biomimicry. And, when the journey comes to an end, MacNeal examines their commercial role in our world in an effort to help us ultimately cherish (and maybe even eat) bugs.

David MacNeal is a Los Angeles-born journalist orbiting the fringes of science, technology and culture. As the black sheep to a family tree of engineers, the gravitation towards geekery came naturally. This has led him to shatter a tooth on a makeshift motorized bicycle, race down the Santa Monica Mountains in illegal soapbox derbies, and twerk in the streets with banana-clad ravers of the Decentralized Dance Party movement. His articles have since appeared WIRED, Outside, ArsTechnica, 5280, Medium, and other publications. He currently lives in Denver.