Why am I passionate about this?

When I was at school in 1991, the terrible news came out that Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, had died of HIV/AIDS. At the time, this virus was fatal in nearly everyone it infected. And yet, only 30 years later, we now have drugs that completely prevent the disease. This amazing breakthrough is just one of the many success stories that inspired my passion for infectious diseases, the way our immune system can fight them off, and how science can help us fight infections. The list of books goes from fiction about when infections go wrong and to popular science about how scientists ensure the nightmare scenario never happens.


I wrote

Infectious: Pathogens and How We Fight Them

By John S. Tregoning,

Book cover of Infectious: Pathogens and How We Fight Them

What is my book about?

Nature wants you dead; it wants you to cough, sneeze, and poop yourself into an early grave. But thanks to…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Andromeda Strain

John S. Tregoning Why did I love this book?

I read this book as a teenager, and it sparked my fascination with infectious diseases and what can go wrong if they get out of control.

The book combines science with a really tense plotline. It is where I first heard of "interferon," part of the human immune system that fights viruses. This has brought me full circle, my lab researches interferon and viruses, and now I get to write books about it, too! 

By Michael Crichton,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Andromeda Strain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes a captivating thriller about a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism, which threatens to annihilate human life.
 
Five prominent biophysicists have warned the United States government that sterilization procedures for returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere. Two years later, a probe satellite falls to the earth and lands in a desolate region of northeastern Arizona. Nearby, in the town of Piedmont, bodies lie heaped and flung across the ground, faces locked in frozen surprise. What could cause such shock and fear? The terror has begun, and…


Book cover of Station Eleven

John S. Tregoning Why did I love this book?

I loved this book because it gives a dark vision of what could go wrong if we fail to control pandemics. I read this book in 2019–just before the COVID-19 pandemic, which gave it a terrifying reality!

I am a lab scientist, and my work can focus on somewhat abstract ideas about infection, but this book inspired me to think about the (huge) human impact.

By Emily St. John Mandel,

Why should I read it?

29 authors picked Station Eleven as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Best novel. The big one . . . stands above all the others' - George R.R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones

Now an HBO Max original TV series

The New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award
Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction
National Book Awards Finalist
PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist

What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.

One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in…


Book cover of Advice To A Young Scientist

John S. Tregoning Why did I love this book?

Peter Medawar was one of the most influential figures in immunology; I was (and continue to be) inspired by his thinking about how to do research.

His book speaks to me about how I can do my best science and better understand the immune system in order to protect people against infectious diseases in the future.

By P. B. Medawar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Advice To A Young Scientist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

To those interested in a life in science, Sir Peter Medawar, Nobel laureate, deflates the myths of invincibility, superiority, and genius instead, he demonstrates it is common sense and an inquiring mind that are essential to the scientist's calling. He deflates the myths surrounding scientists,invincibility, superiority, and genius instead, he argues that it is common sense and an inquiring mind that are essential to the makeup of a scientist. He delivers many wry observations on how to choose a research topic, how to get along wih collabourators and older scientists and administrators, how (and how not) to present a scientific…


Book cover of The Compatibility Gene: How Our Bodies Fight Disease, Attract Others, and Define Our Selves

John S. Tregoning Why did I love this book?

I love this book because Dan combines his passion for immunology with his own voice. It inspired me to write my own book.

Dan’s boundless enthusiasm for his field explodes off the page, breathing life into what could have been a dry topic. I learnt a huge amount about both writing and immunology.

By Daniel Davis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Compatibility Gene as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Compatibility Gene takes readers on a global journey of discovery spanning 60 years, involving scores of scientists, and encompassing the history of transplants and immunology. That journey has revealed astonishing links between who we are as individuals and our never-ceasing struggle to survive disease.

Most of the 25,000 genes we possess are the same for all of us. Compatibility genes are those that vary most from person to person and give each of us a unique molecular signature. These genes determine both the extent to which we are susceptible to a vast range of illnesses and the different ways…


Book cover of Lab Girl

John S. Tregoning Why did I love this book?

This book inspired me to write. I love the way Jahren puts herself in the centre of the narrative linking the science and the scientist.

Whilst there are differences between how plants and humans respond to infections–pathogens are important for both. Thinking about cross-cutting principles across different disciplines often opens up new ideas.

By Hope Jahren,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Lab Girl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER •NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Geobiologist Hope Jahren has spent her life studying trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Lab Girl is her revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also a celebration of the lifelong curiosity, humility, and passion that drive every scientist.

"Does for botany what Oliver Sacks’s essays did for neurology, what Stephen Jay Gould’s writings did for paleontology.” —The New York Times

In these pages, Hope takes us back to her Minnesota childhood, where she spent hours in unfettered play in her father’s college laboratory. She tells us how she found a sanctuary…


Explore my book 😀

Infectious: Pathogens and How We Fight Them

By John S. Tregoning,

Book cover of Infectious: Pathogens and How We Fight Them

What is my book about?

Nature wants you dead; it wants you to cough, sneeze, and poop yourself into an early grave. But thanks to your immune system (and innovations made by scientists), you are alive to read about why you are alive! Human life expectancy has nearly doubled in the last 100 years thanks to advances in our understanding of infectious diseases.

In my book (written in the dark days of the first COVID lockdown), I explore the history of infectious disease, all the incredible researchers who helped us understand pathogens, and how the body responds to them. I then celebrate the remarkable leaps forward made in protecting us from infectious diseases and treating us if we do get infected.

Book cover of The Andromeda Strain
Book cover of Station Eleven
Book cover of Advice To A Young Scientist

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Bad Blood

By K.B. Thorne,

Book cover of Bad Blood

K.B. Thorne Author Of Bad Blood

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve adored reading a good snarky first-person story since I first read Bloodlist, so long as the snark doesn’t go too far and become total unlikeable jerk… It can be a fine line! I hope I stay on the right side of it, but having read it enough and written in it for years with my Blood Rights Series, I feel qualified to say I’m a…snark connoisseur. (If you ask my family, this is how my own internal/life narrator speaks! My mother says that my character Dakota is me if I “said everything aloud that I think in my head.” She’s probably right, and I’m okay with that.)

K.B.'s book list on if first person snark is your style

What is my book about?

Bad Blood is paranormal suspense in First Person Snark, so if you like sarcastic, strong female characters set in a world where the preternatural is run amok (i.e., legal citizens in the United States), then this book and series are for you.

Follow Sadie Stanton–"poster girl for the preternatural"–as she deals with all sorts of messes and sets up her business while being a vampire in a new day...or night, really.

Bad Blood

By K.B. Thorne,

What is this book about?

VAMPIRES ARE PEOPLE TOO

I’m Sadie Stanton, and I don’t know why everyone makes such a big deal out of me. I’m just like everyone else—I’m trying to start a business, not spending much time on my social life, and dealing with an obnoxious roommate...

Oh, and being a vampire. There’s that. But it’s okay, because we’re all legal now.

But believe me, that doesn’t make life easy. In fact, it might be harder now than ever before, but I did it to myself… And now vampires are attacking people seemingly at random and not even trying to feed. Everyone…


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