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Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic

Blight: Fungi and the Coming Pandemic

by Emily Monosson

W. W. Norton & Company ·2023 ·272 pages
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52/99
Near the Top

66/99

Critics' Rating Index

Maybe Someday

37/99

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Scholars' Citation Index

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About This Book

A prescient warning about the mysterious and deadly world of fungi―and how to avert further loss across species, including our own. Fungi are everywhere. Most are harmless; some are helpful. A few are killers. Collectively, infectious fungi are the most devastating agents of disease on earth, and a fungus that can persist in the environment without its host is here to stay. In Blight, Emily Monosson documents how trade, travel, and a changing climate are making us all more vulnerable to invasion. Populations of bats, frogs, and salamanders face extinction. In the Northwest, America's beloved national parks are covered with the spindly corpses of whitebark pines. Food crops are under siege, threatening our coffee, bananas, and wheat―and, more broadly, our global food security. Candida auris , drug-resistant and resilient, infects hospital patients and those with weakened immune systems. Coccidioides, which lives in drier dusty regions, may cause infection in apparently healthy people. The horrors go on--yet prevention is possible. Tracing the history of fungal spread and the most recent discoveries in the field, Monosson meets scientists who are working tirelessly to protect species under threat and whose innovative approaches to fungal invasion have the potential to save human lives. Delving into case studies at once fascinating, sobering, and hopeful, Blight serves as a wake-up call, a reminder of the delicate inter-connection of the natural world, and a lesson in seeing life on our planet with renewed humility and awe.


Reviews

"Like The Last of Us, the video game and HBO series premised on a fungal pandemic turning people into zombies, Blight emphasizes the decidedly unsalutary things that fungi can do."

Jennifer Szalai· The New York Times Read review ↗ Near the Top

"But what is unique about Blight is its timing."

Eugenia Bone· The Wall Street Journal Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Fungi sicken us and fungi sustain us."

Elizabeth Kolbert· New York Review of Books Read review ↗ Near the Top

"An engrossing read with an urgent message about the next frontier of disease."

Kirkus Top of the Pile

"Pathogenic fungi are experts at surviving."

Tony Miksanek· Booklist Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Monosson keeps the discussions of fungi biology accessible, and the battery of case studies of fungal outbreaks underscores the urgency of the threat."

Publishers Weekly Read review ↗ Near the Top

"The solutions she proposes sound simple."

Jennifer Latner· The Boston Globe Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

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