Microbiology Books

Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple (Medmaster Series)

Mark Gladwin, Bill Trattler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 125 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

one of the best summaries 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

If you're a medical student, buy this book for Immunity and Infection! It simplifies everything very well and it's good to use with First Aid since both have summaries.

Makes it fun, and ridiculously simple! 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

A very helpful text for your first and second year of med school. It does follow it's title... ridiculously simple. Great to use in conjunction with class notes as you learn about all the "bugs." Helpful to get the basics and keep all of the stuff straight.

A fun read... very humorous with funny cartoons. Highly recommended and helpful!

Great micro book for medical students 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Covers all of the "bugs" thoroughly with a clinical focus. At the end of each chapter there are review tables w/ info on the bug, how it presents clinically, and how you treat it. Has lots of pneumonics and different ways to remember the info. The book is in black and white except the cover.

Editorial Review:

Synopsis of medical microbiology and antimicrobial therapy. For medical students. Conversational writing style. Abundant cartoon-like illustrations. Concentrates on clinical and infectious disease issues that are both interesting and vital to contemporary medicine. Previous edition: c1995. Softcover.

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design

Richard Dawkins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 343 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The Blind Watchmaker 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Not an easy book to read, but well worth the effort. Understanding the evidence and arguments for evolution requires effort and thought, whereas believing in invisible and untestable gods is easy, which is why most people choose the latter. Dawkins explains clearly why evolution is the best, indeed the only rational explanation for life as it exists on Earth (other than the FSM, of course. Arrrr!)

Editorial Review:

"The best general account of evolution I have read in recent years."—E. O. Wilson. With a new introduction.

Twenty years after its original publication, The Blind Watchmaker, framed with a new introduction by the author, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the eighteenth-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte. Natural selection—the unconscious, automatic, blind, yet essentially nonrandom process Darwin discovered—is the blind watchmaker in nature.

Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure

Paul A. Offit

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Columbia University Press Amazon Marketplace: 55 new & used starting at $13.45

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A London researcher was the first to assert that the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine known as MMR caused autism in children. Following this "discovery," a handful of parents declared that a mercury-containing preservative in several vaccines was responsible for the disease. If mercury caused autism, they reasoned, eliminating it from a child's system should treat the disorder. Consequently, a number of untested alternative therapies arose, and, most tragically, in one such treatment, a doctor injected a five-year-old autistic boy with a chemical in an effort to cleanse him of mercury, which stopped his heart instead.

Children with autism have been placed on stringent diets, subjected to high-temperature saunas, bathed in magnetic clay, asked to swallow digestive enzymes and activated charcoal, and injected with various combinations of vitamins, minerals, and acids. Instead of helping, these therapies can hurt those who are most vulnerable, and particularly in the case of autism, they undermine childhood vaccination programs that have saved millions of lives. An overwhelming body of scientific evidence clearly shows that childhood vaccines are safe and does not cause autism. Yet widespread fear of vaccines on the part of parents persists.

In this book, Paul A. Offit, a national expert on vaccines, challenges the modern-day false prophets who have so egregiously misled the public and exposes the opportunism of the lawyers, journalists, celebrities, and politicians who support them. Offit recounts the history of autism research and the exploitation of this tragic condition by advocates and zealots. He considers the manipulation of science in the popular media and the courtroom, and he explores why society is susceptible to the bad science and risky therapies put forward by many antivaccination activists.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

Steven Johnson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 103 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Good book, but Kindle edition falls short 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This was the first book I purchased for my Kindle, based on a friend's recommendation (who had read the print version). I found it a very enjoyable read, and it will be especially appealing to those interested in epidemiology, statistical graphics, and medical history.

However, if you care at all about annotations and such, I recommend you get it in print, not as a Kindle e-book. The book has very extensive notes at the end. I have to believe that these notes are numbered, and that there are superscripts in the main text of the printed version that reference these notes. However, in the Kindle edition, there are no links to these notes (even though such linking is possible), and there is no way to associate a given end note with a location in the text. I doubt that I would have interrupted my reading to follow many such notes, but I certainly would have done so a FEW times on topics of particular interest to me, and the inability to do so is a big loss.

The Kindle edition also includes the complete index, minus page numbers, and again with no links. This is not as big a problem, as one can use the search feature to find those locations.

What I wonder now is if this lack of linkage to end notes is the norm for Kindle books, or whether The Ghost Map is unusual in that respect. I suppose I will be pretty leery of reading nonfiction in this format in the future. This e-book cost me less than the printed form -- but I also received significantly less.

Another general note on the book is that it is disappointing that it does not display the second version of Snow's map (with voronoi boundaries) that is discussed in the conclusions. It would seem that this would be the "title map" so it is a curious omission.

Editorial Review:

A National Bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book, and an Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year

It's the summer of 1854, and London is just emerging as one of the first modern cities in the world. But lacking the infrastructure-garbage removal, clean water, sewers-necessary to support its rapidly expanding population, the city has become the perfect breeding ground for a terrifying disease no one knows how to cure. As the cholera outbreak takes hold, a physician and a local curate are spurred to action-and ultimately solve the most pressing medical riddle of their time.

In a triumph of multidisciplinary thinking, Johnson illuminates the intertwined histories of the spread of disease, the rise of cities, and the nature of scientific inquiry, offering both a riveting history and a powerful explanation of how it has shaped the world we live in.

The Hot Zone

Richard Preston

List Price: $23.00 By: Random House Amazon Marketplace: 728 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 485 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Most Repugnant Book Ever 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book is excellent, on my top 10 list for sure, but it is an unflinching look at subject matter which is far past revolting.

Something tells me filoviruses aren't quite finished with the human species.

Fantastic! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Hot Zone is one of my most favorite books ever. I read this a few years ago, and made my husband read it only recently. He loved it as much as I did. It's such a compelling read and I was fascinated from the first to the last page. You won't regret picking up this book.

Editorial Review:

A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot" virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the
appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their "crashes" into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.


From the Paperback edition.

Microbiology (Benjamin/Cummings series in the life sciences)

Gerard J. Tortora

List Price: $51.95 By: Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Co.,Subs. of Addison Wesley Longman,US Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $0.01

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Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

what you see is not what you get!! 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I thought i was getting the paperback version of microbiology. I got the paperback but it was an international version that was illegal to be sold in the United States. I will never buy from this vendor again and if you want what you pay for you wouldn't either. Hopefully it wont be that different from the original version in content.

Editorial Review:

Over the years, instructors at more than 1000 colleges and universities have made Microbiology:An Introduction, their #1 choice. The new sixth edition builds on the hallmark features of past editions-an accessible writing style, a systems approach to diseases, an exceptional art program-and adds new features and supplements that meet the needs of today's students. This new edition becomes an even better teaching and learning tool with a new Interactive Student Tutorial CD-ROM, expanded critical thinking opportunities, a new Taxonomic Guide to Diseases Appendix, a World Wide Web Site, enhanced step-by-step descriptions added to text and illustrations, expanded end-of-chapter learning materials, and additional coverage of hot topics such as emerging infectious diseases, antibiotic/multi-drug resistance, and rapid identification of microorganisms.

The Demon in the Freezer

Richard Preston

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 125 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

“The bard of biological weapons captures
the drama of the front lines.”
-Richard Danzig, former secretary of the navy


The first major bioterror event in the United States-the anthrax attacks in October 2001-was a clarion call for scientists who work with “hot” agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of Usamriid, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the headquarters of the U.S. biological weapons program and now the epicenter of national biodefense.

Peter Jahrling, the top scientist at Usamriid, a wry virologist who cut his teeth on Ebola, one of the world’s most lethal emerging viruses, has ORCON security clearance that gives him access to top secret information on bioweapons. His most urgent priority is to develop a drug that will take on smallpox-and win. Eradicated from the planet in 1979 in one of the great triumphs of modern science, the smallpox virus now resides, officially, in only two high-security freezers-at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and in Siberia, at a Russian virology institute called Vector. But the demon in the freezer has been set loose. It is almost certain that illegal stocks are in the possession of hostile states, including Iraq and North Korea. Jahrling is haunted by the thought that biologists in secret labs are using genetic engineering to create a new superpox virus, a smallpox resistant to all vaccines.

Usamriid went into a state of Delta Alert on September 11 and activated its emergency response teams when the first anthrax letters were opened in New York and Washington, D.C. Preston reports, in unprecedented detail, on the government’s response to the attacks and takes us into the ongoing FBI investigation. His story is based on interviews with top-level FBI agents and with Dr. Steven Hatfill.

Jahrling is leading a team of scientists doing controversial experiments with live smallpox virus at CDC. Preston takes us into the lab where Jahrling is reawakening smallpox and explains, with cool and devastating precision, what may be at stake if his last bold experiment fails.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Origin of Species (Modern Library Paperbacks)

Charles Darwin

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Total reviews: 84 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Perhaps the most readable and accessible of the great works of scientific imagination, The Origin of Species sold out on the day it was published in 1859. Theologians quickly labeled Charles Darwin the most dangerous man in England, and, as the Saturday Review noted, the uproar over the book quickly "passed beyond the bounds of the study and lecture-room into the drawing-room and the public street." Yet, after reading it, Darwin's friend and colleague T. H. Huxley had a different reaction: "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that."
Based largely on Darwin's experience as a naturalist while on a five-year voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle, The Origin of Species set forth a theory of evolution and natural selection that challenged contemporary beliefs about divine providence and the immutability of species. A landmark contribution to philosophical and scientific thought, this edition also includes an introductory historical sketch and a glossary Darwin later added to the original text.

Charles Darwin grew up considered, by his own account, "a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect." A quirk of fate kept him from the career his father had deemed appropriate--that of a country parson--when a botanist recommended Darwin for an appointment as a naturalist aboard H.M.S. Beagle from 1831 to 1836. Darwin is also the author of the five-volume work Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle (1839) and The Descent of Man (1871).

Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life

Carl Zimmer

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Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

•Within days of being born, we are infected with billions of E. coli. They will inhabit each and every one of us until we die. E. coli is notorious for making people gravely ill, but engineered strains of the bacteria save millions of lives each year.

•Despite its microscopic size, E.coli contains more than four thousand genes that operate a staggeringly sophisticated network of millions of molecules.

•Scientists are rebuilding E. coli from the ground up, redefining our understanding of life on Earth.

In the tradition of classics like Lewis Thomas's Lives of a Cell, Carl Zimmer has written a fascinating and utterly accessible investigation of what it means to be alive. Zimmer traces E. coli's remarkable history, showing how scientists used it to discover how genes work and then to launch the entire biotechnology industry. While some strains of E. coli grab headlines by causing deadly diseases, scientists are retooling the bacteria to produce everything from human insulin to jet fuel.

Microcosm is the story of the one species on Earth that science knows best of all. It's also a story of life itself--of its rules, its mysteries, and its future.

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

Laurie Garrett

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 68 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

More riveting than The Hot Zone 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

If you liked The Hot Zone, you will love this book. The Hot Zone told the scary story of a variant of Ebola that turned out to be harmless to humans. The Coming Plague narrates the history of little-known but lethal diseases such as Machupo, Ebola, Four-Corners Hantavirus, Lassa Fever, Marburg and others. In each of these cases, the list of victims was relatively small, but the onset and progress of these illnesses were frightful. Garrett examines how "disease cowboys" worked backward to patient zero, followed the course of the illness, discovered its means of transmission and identified each disease. In a few cases, the original vector could not be found, despite a careful search. How even medical professionals react when they find out that they too, have the disease is a fascinating psychological study. Often they go into a state of denial, like the researcher in New York who came down with Lassa after studying some samples. At the other extreme was one doctor, who, fearing he was exposed to Ebola, hit the bottle hoping that alcohol would kill the virus. To his relief it turned out to be measles.

A large amount of this book is devoted to AIDS. Garrett details its emergence in the early 80s. She is critical of the government's slow response, which she says was partly due to the insistence of some in the Reagan administration that since it affected only homosexual men it was beneath concern. On the other hand, she suggests that the rampant promiscuity of some members of the gay community didn't help matters either. While there was enough blame to go around, the real heroes were a handful of careful physicians who noted some bizarre symptoms among their gay patients and brought this medical condition to the CDC and the world's attention. While this book presents an excellent history of the emergence of AIDS in both America and Africa, Garrett's information on AIDS is now unfortunately out-of-date.

The author presents more chapters on antibiotic-resistant TB, Legionnaire's Disease, the problem with overdosing farm animals with antibiotics and even Toxic Shock Syndrome. At one point, I bogged down with information overload. But during Garrett's chapters on hemorrhagic and other exotic fevers, this book is difficult to put down.

Editorial Review:

A critically acclaimed study documents the outbreaks of newly discovered diseases around the globe, such as HIV, Lassa, and Ebola, and explores the social and environmental deterioration that helps to keep such viruses alive. Reprint. Tour. NYT.