Science Book Reviews

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Microbes

Far from a sterile read!

This is an absolutely tremendous book, which introduces the wonderful world of the very small but with beautiful big colour photographs. In this respect, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly is worlds apart from the majority of microbiology texts, which, for generations of editions, have failed dismally to make this subject compelling, either for specialists or for younger people who have yet to do their first Gram stain! The trap many competing books fall into is that they are either achingly over-detailed - and lose readers in a mire of microbial taxonomy - or, ironically, they're so sterile in the way they're written that readers' minds fall victim to the cognitive-equivalent of a saprophyte that recycles interest elsewhere! That, or the content is so over-simplified that the reader is still left wondering what the difference is between a virus and a bacterium.

The presentation of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, however, is captivating. The page size is large - A4 - and so is the text, which is succinct and clear. The book itself is short and condenses the microbial world into five punchy chapters. It opens by setting the microbiological stage with an introduction to the organisms that fall under the umbrella term 'microbe' and how we name and classify them. Then it's down the nearest human throat to find out how the body works both with and against the different elements of the microbial world before presenting some tantilising morsels on the roles of microbes in food production and, less appetising, food poisoning. The next chapter ventures into the great outdoors to explore how bacteria contribute to the carbon and nitrogen cycles, how they help to clean up sewage and the basics of bioremediation. The closing chapter is devoted to climate change and, true the title of the book, looks at how the microbial world can help and hinder in this process.

What I especially liked about this book was the nice smattering of history charting the key milestones and contributions of the some of the big names, like Pasteur and Fleming, together with the use of additional 'factlet' boxes to emphasise the importance of some aspect of what was being presented. The whole thing is exceedingly well written and the use of images contrives to make the content into, quite literally, an infectious and engaging read. Some of the images are more decorative than factual, but if it stimulates a young person to keep reading that's hardly a problem...

Which brings me to the question of, at whom is this book aimed? Without doubt the target market is school children and the accompanying CD contains a host of materials that could be used in class to bolster the educational experience. But the overall level of the content is quite high and would certainly satisfy a GCSE and (these days) probably an A Level syllabus.

Slightly disappointing was the fact that the book under-emphasised the world of viruses which, whilst strictly not 'microbes', cause enough confusion amongst the general public to warrant more attention than they received. There are also some other points in the book that probably deserve more explicit coverage than they have been afforded. The section on antibiotic resistence is a bit weak, given its importance, and the issue of hospital superbugs is quite superficially covered, confining itself solely to MRSA. Likewise, the question of how life on Earth began received less than half a page.

But these relatively trivial points do not tarnish what is otherwise a sparkling book, which will definitely appeal to its target market and beyond. I'm a clinical lecturer in virology and I thoroughly enjoyed it (and learned a few things too!).

- Chris Smith, Dept. of Pathology, Cambridge University.

Chris Smith