Spillover

By: David Quammen

Narrated by: Jonathan Yen

Length: 20 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

A masterpiece of science reporting that tracks the animal origins of emerging human diseases.

The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia - but those reports miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. David Quammen tracks this subject around the world. He recounts adventures in the field - netting bats in China, trapping monkeys in Bangladesh, stalking gorillas in the Congo - with the world’s leading disease scientists. In Spillover, Quammen takes the listener along on this astonishing quest to learn how, where from, and why these diseases emerge, and he asks the terrifying question: What might the next big one be?

©2012 David Quammen (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Extremely thorough and well written

This book is comprehensive and really gives you a good understanding of the topic of the world of viruses. It is also easily accessible to the general reader despite some difficult concepts.

Superb -- excellent science writing

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

It is one of the best overviews of zoonotic diseases – – if not the best in print and in audio. Just like reading a crime thriller – – except it's real.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

We Hang by a Thread
So you Think You're Safe

Any additional comments?

I can't wait for his next book. I know that he wrote one on ebola but I believe this is just a bit of a rehash of what's in this book. I'm not absolutely sure about this I'm just going by what other commenters mentioned-- and what I could see you online.

Spillover - Understanding the Next Pandemics

This book is fantastic and very didact. It clearly explains the scientific foundation of every pandemic that ever happened since the Spanish flu. Also, it gives us an understanding of the risks we are facing when keeping that present way of development and doing business as usual.
I strongly recommend this reading/listening.

Excellent and pertinent

Amazing to find out how much was known about corona viruses and pandemics years ago!

Great listen

Interesting and informative book, especially now during the SARS- CoV-2 outbreak. Author did a great job of making this topic really engaging.

A good book to help one understand the animal/human transmission of disease

I'd never really understood what was meant by "spillover" or the process by which animal diseases jumped to people. If you're interested in knowing how this happens, I think this book would help explain.

true epidemiology book. best recent

the take home for me was in order to prevent spillover is obt6by human actions and behaviors. that we as humans have control.

Very interesting

Well, this was scary! To we humans I don’t think it will matter how many deadly viruses are out there. Humans are too many, we cut down a rain forest, pollute everything that we can pollute. We eat whatever, crawls, flys or swims. It seems as though we alone are responsible for the many ills of our planet, and we don’t care what is destroyed forever, and yes, too, our Planet Earth. Its the almighty Dollar that rules. Before we know it our planet will be dead, we Humans are the scourge that ultimately are deadly viruses, “let’s get rid of these humans once and for all!” We’re already experiencing Covid and now have Monkey Pox to deal with, which looks horrifying! Could this be our next Super Spreader?
I do recommend this, we should know about these viruses and how smart they are, like intelligent beings, the viruses seem to have an intelligence, as though going to look for a place to live, we are inviting them to live among us.
The narration is very good and holds your interest the many hours long this is. (I look for the longest books.)

cut hunter

The cut hunter tangent went on a bit too long, and full of conjecture.

predicting covid-19

this is a well-told story of how things like malaria, influenza and covid-19 can jump from other animals into humans and become a very big problem.