On Immunity

Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag was an incredibly formative piece of writing for me, especially when I was thinking about how fears of tuberculosis and cancer shaped early and mid-20th-century design. I think this book picks up where that one left off, a piece of writing that not only writes a medical history but frames how we think about health, disease, and fear in discussions about vaccination, but with a great deal of empathy. This is a crucial read to understand how we bridge divisions and move forward in our pandemic age.

Okay, this is not a book about food systems, but I included it because it is a beautifully written book that poses a question about vaccines (written prior to pandemic vaccine issues), and then circles around that question in a reflective and artful way. Biss writes about a topic with clarity and depth, in beautiful prose. And even though this book isn’t about food, it shares with questions of food systems the basic conundrum of how to make individual choices to ensure our loved ones are healthy in the face of a large system designed to manage either food or… show more.