I'm a librarian who loves anime, manga, and reading a wide variety of genres.
I need to sit down and write a bunch of reviews, including one for this book. The short version: Audio was probably the best way to go with this. Gabra Zackman's narration was great, and the primary reason I could see myself relistening to this. Unfortunately, although this book had some nice tidbits of information, it skimmed over or outright skipped a lot of the scientific aspects of the various diseases and the processes by which their cures (if applicable) were discovered. I also disliked Wright's incredibly broad definition of "plague." Since she often chose to focus on societal reactions to plagues, she could easily have dropped, say, the lobotomy chapter and included less US-centric or Europe-centric examples of responses to the bubonic plague, cholera, etc.
Possible Halloween Bingo squares:
- Doomsday: Wright frequently wrote about people who viewed the horrific plagues they were living through as the coming of the end of the world.