THE MICROBE WARS

An incredibly timely new book on emerging viruses and the coming pandemic.

Pitch letter:

This is just my kind of book, all alarmism and breathless doom and gloom—and so compelling. And, while the Ebola story is a part of the narrative, there’s more: SARS, MERS, Marburg, Chikungunya, smallpox, polio, and “the king of beasts,” avian flu.

The Microbe Wars (tentative title) will be written by the very impressive team of Michael Osterholm, one of the world’s leading authorities on infectious diseases (you may have seen Osterholm's piece in the Times last month, and Mark Olshaker, coauthor of Virus Hunter and Mindhunter. Tracy Behar is going to focus the book and eliminate some things (the food safety discussion will go) and we think its broad scope is appropriate to Osterholm’s resume and gives us more backlist potential. Be sure to read his bio: it covers the many predictions he’s made that have come to pass, most of which he’s been ridiculed for.