Note: the author will NOT be at this event.

Normally, a story about poop and disease doesn’t equal a page turner, but I thought this was a great book. Read on for all the details.

In 1854, as a cholera epidemic ravaged London, prevailing wisdom blamed “miasma”; in other words, “bad air” was spreading the disease. One prominent physician disagreed. It was Dr. John Snow’s work outside of the lab, however — his innovative mapmaking, of all things — that identified beyond a reasonable doubt the epidemic’s true source. The Ghost Map thrives, similarly, on author Steven Johnson’s interdisciplinary zeal. Local politics, medicine, urban planning, religious faith…. The Washington Post raves, “By turns a medical thriller, detective story and paean to city life, Johnson’s account of the outbreak and its modern implications is a true page-turner.”

Ghost Map on Amazon.