Spillover

Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

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Spillover

By: David Quammen

Narrated by: Jonathan Yen

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A gripping, timely book about the transmission of deadly viruses from animal to human populations, and how we can tackle a global pandemic.

As globalization spreads and as we destroy the ancient ecosystems, we encounter strange and dangerous infections that originate in animals but that can be transmitted to humans. Diseases that were contained are being set free and the results are potentially catastrophic.

In a journey that takes him from southern China to the Congo, from Bangladesh to Australia, David Quammen tracks these infections to their source, and asks what we can do to prevent some new pandemic spreading across the face of the earth.

As cases of Coronavirus grow across the globe, discover the book that predicted this viral disaster and the science that could stop the next one in its tracks.

‘A tremendous book...this gives you all you need to know and all you should know’ Sunday Times

‘Chilling… [A] brilliant, devastating book’ Daily Mail

2013, National Book Critics Circle Non-Fiction Award, Short-listed

2013, Society of Biology Book of the Year, Winner

Contagious Diseases

Ecology

Nature & Ecology

Outdoors & Nature

Physical Illness & Disease

Science

Africa

China

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Critic reviews

A frightening and fascinating masterpiece of science reporting that reads like a detective story (Walter Isaacson)

It may have been eight years since David Quammen's Spillover was first published, but its prescience is spookily topical this plague year (Richard Dawkins)

Travelling deep into the rainforest with the scientists hoping to identify the next pandemic pathogen, Quammen's book is plotted like a detective thriller (Gaia Vince)

Quammen’s book is compelling and shows that there are many candidates out there vying to be the next pandemic (Euan Lawson)

Quammen has a wide range of knowledge, an agile pen, and a generous heart (James Gorman)

Most relevant

Whereas I admit there are many place names, etc., that may be new to the narrator, the mispronunciation seems almost wilful. By the fifteenth Tan-ZANE-ia I was pulling my hair out.