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The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Books
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Back in 2003, when promoting her book Oryx and Crake (a the companion novel to The Year of the Flood), Margaret Atwood said it was a work of “speculative fiction” rather than science fiction. The latter, she explained is the stuff of “talking squids in outer space.”

Back in 2003, when promoting her book Oryx and Crake (a the companion novel to The Year of the Flood), Margaret Atwood said it was a work of “speculative fiction” rather than science fiction. The latter, she explained is the stuff of “talking squids in outer space.”
Price: 
£18.99
Focus Rating: 
4

Rising Plague: The Global Threat from Deadly Bacteria and Our Dwindling Arsenal to Fight Them by Brad Spellberg

Books
Publisher: Prometheus

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria infect two million people in the US every year and kill 100,000 of them. A combination of accelerating bacterial resistance and increasingly lethargic research means we are on the point of losing the war against infectious disease entirely

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria infect two million people in the US every year and kill 100,000 of them. A combination of accelerating bacterial resistance and increasingly lethargic research means we are on the point of losing the war against infectious disease entirely. A war that, 40 years ago, we thought we had won.

Dr Spellberg is an infectious-disease physician. He writes compellingly about the problem and its causes, but his solution (a mix of legislative and financial incentives) is heavy going and doesn’t offer much hope.
(250pp, hbk)
 
Price: 
£17.49
Focus Rating: 
3