Hot Paperback

The Hot Zone


by Richard Preston

Boy, if you aren't squeamish or hypochondriacal and you haven't read it yet, this is must read material. I'm only about half-way through and there are some unsolved mysteries just unfolding now, but it is, as the cover says, a terrifying true story of the world's most fearsome (in terms of kill rate and the violent deaths they produce) pathogens - the filoviruses (named for their thread-like structure as seen left), which include Ebola (90% fatality rate within a couple of weeks after exposure) and Marburg ("only" about a 25% rate - quite lethal already compared with other pathogens).

I'll spare you the gruesome details of how these viruses kill. It is so disturbing that I don't plan to recommend it to my students without some parental notification in the future - I could easily see kids having nightmares or turning into total germophobes. Of course I read the thing sitting on a NY City subway car surrounded by the hacking, wheezing and sneezing masses. It's an interesting context in which to read a book that could easily induce acute anxiety attacks in more than a few people that I know.

It's not all about blood and guts. Preston is a great story teller with a gift for getting inside people's heads. The parallel stories that go from African or Asian rainforests to suburban DC and back again give you a real sense of how small the world has become - and how dangerous that smallness may prove to be. Did I mention that this is a true story?

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