16 books like Missing Microbes

By Martin J Blaser,

Here are 16 books that Missing Microbes fans have personally recommended if you like Missing Microbes. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us about Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom

Anne Biklé Author Of The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health

From my list on microbiomes, gut health, food, and farming.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been enamored with the natural world and how it works. This trait, among others, led me into the fields of biology, natural history, and environmental planning. Even as I witness our species chiseling away at the planet, I find hope and solace. Working alongside the tenacity and resiliency of plants, animals, and soil microbes, I've helped landscapes as large as a river basin and as small as a garden come to life and flourish. Give nature half a chance and she can do wonders.  

Anne's book list on microbiomes, gut health, food, and farming

Anne Biklé Why did Anne love this book?

This book unfolds a long and brilliant argument drawn from Provenza's decades of academic research and experience with domesticated ruminants—cows, sheep, and goats. Turns out these animals are not dumb. 

In healthy pastures and rangelands Provenza illustrates their ability to select a diet of plants that provide sufficient calories, balanced nutrients, and perhaps most important, a mix of plant-made compounds that underpin normal immunity. Provenza calls this "body wisdom." 

Like ruminants, we too have body wisdom. But, the steady infiltration of ultra-processed foods into the human diet challenges body wisdom with mixed messages. While our brains get high, our cells remain malnourished. This book is a rich and extensive immersion that will transform your thinking. It's eye-opening and mind-expanding in all the best ways.  

By Fred Provenza,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Nourishment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Nourishment will change the way you eat and the way you think."-Mark Schatzker, author of The Dorito Effect

"[Provenza is] a wise observer of the land and the animals [and] becomes transformed to learn the meaning of life."-Temple Grandin

Reflections on feeding body and spirit in a world of change

Animal scientists have long considered domestic livestock to be too dumb to know how to eat right, but the lifetime research of animal behaviorist Fred Provenza and his colleagues has debunked this myth. Their work shows that when given a choice of natural foods, livestock have an astoundingly refined palate,…


Book cover of The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health

Anne Biklé Author Of The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health

From my list on microbiomes, gut health, food, and farming.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been enamored with the natural world and how it works. This trait, among others, led me into the fields of biology, natural history, and environmental planning. Even as I witness our species chiseling away at the planet, I find hope and solace. Working alongside the tenacity and resiliency of plants, animals, and soil microbes, I've helped landscapes as large as a river basin and as small as a garden come to life and flourish. Give nature half a chance and she can do wonders.  

Anne's book list on microbiomes, gut health, food, and farming

Anne Biklé Why did Anne love this book?

Despite the complexity of how the brain, gut, and microbiome interact, Mayer covers the topic in a way that is readable and understandable.

I particularly liked his insights in explaining the gut as a sensory organ right up there with its digestive functions. After all, most of the immune system associates with the gut and the microbes that live there. It's an intimate relationship that also includes endocrine cells and a gut-dedicated nervous system.

So what's going on? The gut senses and surveils the human diet, passing along messages to our main brain and various other parts of our body. Whatever it is you eat, or however you characterize your diet, you'll learn what your gut thinks about it.  

By Emeran Mayer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Mind-Gut Connection as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with the latest discoveries on the human microbiome, a practical guide in the tradition of Wheat Belly and Grain Brain that conclusively demonstrates the inextricable, biological link between mind and body. We have all experienced the connection between our mind and our gut-the decision we made because it "felt right"; the butterflies in our stomach before a big meeting; the anxious stomach rumbling when we're stressed out. While the dialogue between the gut and the brain has been recognized by ancient healing traditions, including Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, Western medicine has failed to appreciate the complexity of…


Book cover of A Silent Fire: The Story of Inflammation, Diet, and Disease

Anne Biklé Author Of The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health

From my list on microbiomes, gut health, food, and farming.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been enamored with the natural world and how it works. This trait, among others, led me into the fields of biology, natural history, and environmental planning. Even as I witness our species chiseling away at the planet, I find hope and solace. Working alongside the tenacity and resiliency of plants, animals, and soil microbes, I've helped landscapes as large as a river basin and as small as a garden come to life and flourish. Give nature half a chance and she can do wonders.  

Anne's book list on microbiomes, gut health, food, and farming

Anne Biklé Why did Anne love this book?

Ravella, a gastroenterologist, takes readers deep into the human immune system and its go-to process—inflammation. 

She provides illuminating details about macrophages (a type of immune cell) and how dietary patterns can shift their normally helpful activities to harmful ones. And only recently was it learned that immune cells need certain fats (omega-3s) to make the compounds that end an inflammatory event. Where do we get Omega-3s?

In the foods we eat, among them fatty fish like salmon, grass-fed meat and dairy, and certain nuts and seeds. I also love the history of science and Ravella provides generous sprinkles of various characters and their ideas throughout the book to share how intertwined inflammation is with human biology. 

By Shilpa Ravella,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Silent Fire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Inflammation is the body's ancestral response to its greatest threats: injury and foreign microbes. But as the threats we face have evolved, new science reveals simmering inflammation underneath the surface of everything from heart disease and cancer to mysterious autoimmune conditions.

In A Silent Fire, gastroenterologist Shilpa Ravella takes us on a lyrical quest across time, around the world and into the body to reveal hidden inflammation at the root of modern disease-and how we can control it. We meet an eccentric Russian zoologist, the passionate yet flawed inventor of Kellogg's Cornflakes, and dedicated researchers working on the frontiers of…


Book cover of An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace

Anne Biklé Author Of The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health

From my list on microbiomes, gut health, food, and farming.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been enamored with the natural world and how it works. This trait, among others, led me into the fields of biology, natural history, and environmental planning. Even as I witness our species chiseling away at the planet, I find hope and solace. Working alongside the tenacity and resiliency of plants, animals, and soil microbes, I've helped landscapes as large as a river basin and as small as a garden come to life and flourish. Give nature half a chance and she can do wonders.  

Anne's book list on microbiomes, gut health, food, and farming

Anne Biklé Why did Anne love this book?

I would be remiss if I didn't have a "food" book from my list. While I have read and liked many such books, Adler's is the top gem. 

As I read her book, I pictured us in my kitchen conversing about how we had modified a recipe to save time, money, or both. We compared notes on the lost art of thrift in the kitchen; how to turn bread heels, beans, and bones into tasty components of a meal. 

Adler shows us that we can be cooks on our terms, in our own kitchens, delightfully free of pretense and convention. May this book free your mind and inspire you to get creative in the kitchen to discover what's possible!

By Tamar Adler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked An Everlasting Meal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The most beautifully written description of what cooking is all about, and what it actually is, with recipes' Nigella Lawson

Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks.

In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world's great chefs know: that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them.

She explains how…


Book cover of Adverse Reactions

David Healy Author Of Shipwreck of the Singular: Healthcare's Castaways

From my list on medical treatments gone wrong.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been researching treatment harms for 3 decades and founded RxISK.org in 2012, now an important site for people to report these harms. They’ve been reporting in their thousands often in personal accounts that feature health service gaslighting. During these years, our treatments have become a leading cause of mortality and morbidity, the time it takes to recognize harms has been getting longer, and our medication burdens heavier. We have a health crisis that parallels the climate crisis. Both Green parties and Greta Thunberg’s generation are turning a blind eye to the health chemicals central to this. We need to understand what is going wrong and turn it around.   

David's book list on medical treatments gone wrong

David Healy Why did David love this book?

Adverse Reactions opens with a grim story about a medical father who has given chloramphenicol, an apparently safe drug, to his son and watches him die a slow and agonizing death. The father's efforts to make sure this cannot happen again are extraordinary. Almost single-handedly he lays the basis for the drug safety systems we now have. At the same time, the drug company that made chloramphenicol invented the playbook which means these safety systems don’t work and prescription drug-induced death may now be the commonest form of death there is.    

By Thomas Maeder,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Adverse Reactions as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The author of Children of Psychiatrists recreates one of the largest and most controversial investigations in medical history, presenting the story behind Cholramphenicol, a widely-used antibiotic that resulted in hundreds of deaths, innumerable lawsuits, and countless FDA actions.


Book cover of The Waiting Rooms

Julie Anderson Author Of The Midnight Man

From my list on evocative stories set in a hospital.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write historical crime fiction, and my latest novel is set in a hospital, a real place, now closed. The South London Hospital for Women and Children (1912–1985) was set up by pioneering suffragists and women surgeons Maud Chadburn and Eleanor Davies-Colley (the first woman admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons) and I recreate the now almost-forgotten hospital in my book. Events take place in 1946 when wartime trauma still impacts upon a society exhausted by conflict, and my book choices also reflect this.

Julie's book list on evocative stories set in a hospital

Julie Anderson Why did Julie love this book?

Like Green for Danger, this is a more classic mystery novel, though it is also a dystopian fiction.

The ‘hospital’ in which it is set is a facility for the elderly, who, denied access to antibiotics, wait there until, through accident or nature, they contract an infection and are allowed to die. Yet much of the novel takes place years earlier in South Africa and England, before the antibiotic crisis when the main character meets the love of her life. How we have progressed from today’s society to the society described in the book is gradually revealed, as is the narrator’s part in it. There are also mysterious happenings in the facility.

This is a vividly told tale set in an all too believable near future with restricted access to life-saving drugs. I admire the clever conceit and the intricate interweaving of past and present and was caught up…

By Eve Smith,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Swinging from South Africa to England: one woman's hunt for her birth mother in an all-too-believable near future in which an antibiotic crisis has decimated the population. A prescient, thrilling debut.

'Combines the excitement of a medical thriller a la Michael Crichton with sensitive characterisation and social insight in a timely debut novel all the more remarkable for being conceived and written before the current pandemic' Guardian

'STUNNING and terrifying ... The Waiting Rooms wrenches your heart in every way possible, but written with such humanity and emotion' Miranda Dickinson

'Chillingly close to reality, this gripping thriller brims with authenticity…


Book cover of How to be Orange

Diane Lemieux Author Of Culture Smart! Canada

From my list on understanding the locals.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born in Quebec, have lived in eleven countries, and speak four languages. In my 20+ years as an author and journalist, my goal has always been to create bridges between cultures and to tell stories that enable individuals to better understand each other. For me, a trip to a new country, no matter how short or long, is incomplete unless I’ve had the chance to meet locals.

Diane's book list on understanding the locals

Diane Lemieux Why did Diane love this book?

This is a guidebook on Dutch culture written by a long-time American resident of the Netherlands.

It is a quirky, funny book that, unlike many books that attempt to describe another culture, makes explicit the personal bias of the author.

This is clearly Greg Shapiro’s take on the Dutch, and his keen eye and sense of humour make this a great read for short- and long-term visitors.

I’ve married into the Dutch culture and chuckled my way through the book.

By Gregory Scott Shapiro, Floor de Goede,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to be Orange as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gregory Shapiro – the American Netherlander – brings you a must-have alternative to the Dutch assimilation course. What is the true Dutch identity? Shapiro shares his hilariously clumsy assimilation into Dutch culture and blasts some well-known stereotypes along the way. The book includes questions from the real Dutch Assimilation Exam, whose logic Shapiro delightfully dissects to reveal the Dutch identity they’d rather you didn’t know. How to Be Orange includes a photo essay of the most awkward Dutch product names and is illustrated by award-winning cartoonist Floor de Goede.

How to Be Orange makes you redefine the Holland you thought…


Book cover of A Street Cat Named Bob

Dion Leonard Author Of Finding Gobi: A Little Dog with a Very Big Heart

From my list on animal and human connections.

Why am I passionate about this?

Dion Leonard is an Australian/British ultra runner who competes around the globe in endurance ultra running events ranging from 100 miles to over 240 miles in some of the most extreme conditions known to man. He has numerous top 10 finishes in some of the toughest races on the planet. An international bestselling author with 5 books in over 21 languages; Dion’s story has been featured on CNN, NBC Today Show, Good Morning Britain, CBS, CNBC, ABC America, Associated Press, ESPN, Pickler and Ben, CCTV, BBC, and many others. Dion is an inspirational speaker, animal welfare advocate and raises money and awareness for animals in need.

Dion's book list on animal and human connections

Dion Leonard Why did Dion love this book?

A fascinating story about two unlikely comrades, who, in their own way, save each other. James Bowen, the Author, is a London street performer (a busker), who earns a living playing his guitar. He's a recovering drug addict, who struggles to stay focused and clean. Bob is a homeless Ginger Cat who James finds injured in his apartment building and takes to the vet. James spends most of cash-on-hand to get antibiotics to treat Bob's wounds, and this act of kindness and sacrifice is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. You'll come to care about them both very quickly and you'll really hope that everything turns out well for both of them. James tells his story in very blunt terms, about dealing with addiction and trying to turn his life around.

By James Bowen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Street Cat Named Bob as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of A Christmas Gift from Bob, the original bestseller and heartwarming story of the life-saving friendship between a man and his streetwise cat

'[Bob] has entranced London like no feline since the days of Dick Whittington.' (Evening Standard)

'A heartwarming tale with a message of hope' (Daily Mail)

'Reminded me how amazing having a cat can be' (Glamour)

* * * * * * * *

The uplifting true story of an unlikely friendship between a man on the streets of Covent Garden and the ginger cat who adopts him and helps him heal his life. Now…


Book cover of How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous

Kim Zachman Author Of There's No Ham in Hamburgers: Facts and Folklore about Our Favorite Foods

From my list on children's stories for laughing while learning.

Why am I passionate about this?

I used to be a freelance writer for magazines, but my secret passion was kids’ lit. When I decided to become a children’s author, I wanted to write nonfiction that was fun to read, not the dull, boring books I remembered from my childhood. When I discovered the first three books on my list, I was inspired to free up my funny bone and write to delight. The second two books also showcase innovative formats and humorous writing styles. Reading nonfiction doesn’t have to be a chore. These books will have children laughing while they learn. 

Kim's book list on children's stories for laughing while learning

Kim Zachman Why did Kim love this book?

In my opinion, this book has one of the best titles ever! I’ve always been fascinated by old-timey bad medicine, and I wasn’t disappointed. Poor George Washington died of a sore throat, but alas, no antibiotics back then. The leading doctors in the country took turns treating America’s first president. They tried bloodletting twice, blistering (being bitten by poisonous beetles), and gave him toxic potions that made him throw up. After all of that, he was begging to die, and he did. This book is brilliantly gross and disgusting, while still being delightfully humorous and informative. Highly recommended for ages ten and up.

By Georgia Bragg, Kevin O'Malley (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How They Croaked as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

This award-winning book for reluctant readers is a fascinating collection of remarkable deaths--and not for the faint of heart. Over the course of history, men and women have lived and died. In fact, getting sick and dying can be a big, ugly mess--especially before the modern medical care that we all enjoy today. From King Tut's ancient autopsy to Albert Einstein's great brain escape, How They Croaked contains all the gory details of the awful ends of nineteen awfully famous people. Don't miss the companion, How They Choked!


Book cover of Resistant: A Novel

Evette Davis Author Of 48 States

From my list on being scared of the future (if you enjoy that).

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve worked in journalism, politics, and public policy for 30-plus years and watched as the extreme voices gained the most traction on either side of a debate. On social media, these minority views often dominate the discussion. 48 States is a stand-alone novel highlighting the problems of extremist viewpoints in a civil society. I also have another book series that features a political consultant who discovers she's a witch and joins a secret society that uses magic to manipulate elections to protect humanity. Bottom line: if I can’t fix political discourse for a living, I can write science fiction novels that contemplate how to do it.

Evette's book list on being scared of the future (if you enjoy that)

Evette Davis Why did Evette love this book?

I came across this little gem of a novel through Libby, the app I use to borrow ebooks from the San Francisco Public Library. What I liked about the story's premise was the idea of bacteria evolving beyond what modern antibiotics can manage and how that could turn a simple paper cut into a deadly injury. 

By Rachael Sparks,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A thrilling debut in the style of Crichton or A.G. Riddle, Resistant imagines a chilling-and entirely plausible-future where antibiotics don't work, and weaves adventure, romance, and science into a thrilling chase for a cure.

In the final battle with drug-resistant bacteria, one woman's blood holds a secret weapon.

Rory and her father have survived the antibiotic crisis that has killed millions, including Rory's mother-but ingenuity and perseverance aren't their only advantages. When a stoic and scarred young military veteran enters their quiet life, Rory is drawn to him against her better judgment . . . until he exposes the secrets…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in epidemics, conspiracies, and bacteria?

Epidemics 50 books
Conspiracies 45 books
Bacteria 16 books