Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

David Quammen is a fine science writer and, in this book, has done absolutely heroic feats of research in order to discuss zoonotic diseases and the possibility of the next big outbreak or pandemic. Opportunity is the key. Many viruses and bacteria have evolved to live in their animal hosts without harm or mortal danger, but when humans push into the environments where these hosts live, they become opportunistic new hosts and the consequences are often not so benign.
Quammen provides both historical and current facts about many of the major outbreaks we have seen and heard so much about in the media (SARS, bird flu, etc). He interviews experts and often accompanies them into essentially "hot zones" where outbreaks are current or have recently occurred. For six years he traveled from Australia to China, to India, to Bangladesh, to many parts of Africa--all to talk to the people in the field trying to find out where these potential killers live and how they are passed to humans. In only one instance does this book, in my opinion, falter. He tells a possible but totally fictionalized tale about one fisherman to speculate on how the AIDS virus moved from remote African villages to more populous towns. What is most astounding in this section on HIV/AIDS is the current theory that the virus spread to pandemic levels because of well-intentioned, but unsanitary innoculation campaigns in the early to mid-1900's. Really a fascinating book and worth the read.