Fashion, humor and history? Sign me up! I am a big fan of Jennifer Wright. I follow her on Twitter, she’s amazing, and I really enjoyed It Ended Badly and Get Well Soon which are both snarky looks at history both well and unknown. Killer Fashion follows a similar conceit but it is way too short! Atop their heads ladies would wear ribbons and baubles everywhere. But those ornaments they affixed turned all their heads to candle wicks. I am a big fashion girl. It’s how I make my living, I […]
This Book has Everything: Buboes, Iron Lungs, a Kennedy, and a Vegan Teetotaler Who’s Actually a Pretty Cool Guy
I wish I could remember what it was that first sparked my interest in communicable diseases (and some noncommunicable), but I’ll tell you, there are just not enough books out there to quench my thirst on this topic. I’ve read just about every public health book on the subject that I can get my hands on (and if anyone out there has read a great book on malaria, please send it my way. I’ve been looking for one for a few years now). Get Well […]
Hard to compete with a plagues, tbh
So I picked this book up after finishing Jennifer Wright’s fantastic book about plagues. I’ll never be interested in historical breakups the way that I am in plagues (who could be, really?), but I still enjoyed her writing style in this book like I did the other. Several other people have reviewed it, but in case you missed those — she basically picks 13 breakups throughout history and explains how a really terrible they were. Like, really terrible. It’s a pretty simple concept and a […]
“If you take nothing else away from this book, I hope it’s that sick people are not villains. They are unwell. It’s impossible to say this enough.”
I really enjoyed Wright’s It Ended Badly and I’ve read several book on the subjects covered in Get Well Soon (like Smallpox, Rosemary Kennedy’s lobotomy and Oliver Sacks) so this seemed like a natural Must Read. Vaccination is one of the best things that has happened to civilization. Empires toppled like sandcastles in the wake of diseases we do not give a second thought to today. If taking a moment to elaborate on that point will make this book unpopular with a large group of antivaxxers, that’s okay. This feels […]