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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

By Sharman Apt Russell,

Book cover of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

Sharman Apt Russell Author Of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Explorer Runner Mother

Sharman's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks left by browsing deer, predatory weasels, and inquisitive bears, skunks, and raccoons. Master tracker Kim A Cabrera provides photos and illustrations.

Winner of the prestigious John Burroughs Medal, Russell also writes about community, a sense of place, and a renewed connection with the nonhuman world. She explores the health of…

What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

By Sharman Apt Russell,

What is this book about?

Did a red fox pass this way? Could that be a bobcat print there in the dirt? Do those tracks belong to a domestic dog or a coyote? Combining lyrical memoir with an introduction to wildlife tracking, What Walks This Way explores the joys of learning to recognize the traces of the creatures with whom we share our world.

The nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife-mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice-near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. With wit and compassion, she guides readers through…


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