I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life - Hardcover

Yong, Ed

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847923283 ISBN 13: 9781847923288

Publisher: The Bodley Head Ltd, 2016

Synopsis

'Super-interesting … He just keeps imparting one surprising, fascinating insight after the next. I Contain Multitudes is science journalism at its best’ BILL GATES

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2017
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Selected as a Science Book of the Year by The Economist, The Times and Observer

Your body is teeming with tens of trillions of microbes. It’s an entire world, a colony full of life.

In other words, you contain multitudes.

These microscopic companions sculpt our organs, protect us from diseases, guide our behaviour, and bombard us with their genes. They also hold the key to understanding all life on earth.

In I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong opens our eyes and invites us to marvel at ourselves and other animals in a new light, less as individuals and more as thriving ecosystems.

We learn the invisible and wondrous science behind the corals that construct mighty reefs and the squid that create their own light shows. We see how bacteria can alter our response to cancer-fighting drugs, tune our immune system, influence our evolution, and even modify our genetic make-up. And we meet the scientists who are manipulating these microscopic partners to our advantage.

In a million tiny ways, I Contain Multitudes will radically change how you think about the natural world, and how you see yourself.

About this title

About the Author

Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist who reports for The Atlantic. His work has also featured in National Geographic, the New Yorker, Wired, Nature, New Scientist, Scientific American, and many other publications. His first book, I Contain Multitudes, was a New York Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Prize. Ed's TED talk on mind-controlling parasites has been watched by over 1.5 million people.

You can find him on Twitter at @edyong209

Ed Yong's first book, I Contain Multitudes, about the amazing partnerships between microbes and animals, was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the Wellcome Book Prize. It was a New York Times bestseller. He is a science writer on the staff of The Atlantic, where he won the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Polk Award for science reporting, among other honours. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Wired, The New York Times, Scientific American, and more. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Bodley Head Ltd
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847923283
• ISBN 13: 9781847923288
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368