Considering the circumstances, this was a pretty timely read. While the book was published a good few years before COVID19, the US’s leading voice on today’s pandemic, Dr. Fauci, is one of the experts often referred to or cited in the book. Funny that he’s now a household name.

Anyway. The book. It’s a crash course on the immune system and the history of immunology, told very helpfully with the aid of a number of personal stories. The science is technical, with talk of T-cells, B-cells, leukines, cytokines, etc., but told with analogies so as to aid the reader’s understanding of their functions. A sort of immunology for dummies, mixed with personal stories which really get you invested in the book (and in the research which is helping further our ability to fight disease).

The book covers some interesting topics:

• The immune system constantly seeks balance, receiving signals to attack, to stand down, to protect, etc. from the various actors in the system
• Stress and sleep are the two most significant factors under our control which affect the balance of our immune system. Too much of the first and too little of the second are, unsurprisingly, bad for us
• The immune system heals wounds (including things like sunburns), part of which entails a significant amount of cell division. Every time a cell divides, you have a risk of mutation, which means the more wounds you have, the more likely you are to wind up with disease/cancer from mutated cells
• We’ve over-sterilized our environments. Net, advancements in hygiene have been very positive, but we’ve removed so many bacteria from our everyday lives that our immune systems now increasingly overreact to what was once common. This is one reason we have an increased prevalence of allergies. Let your kids eat food off the floor and play in dirt. It’ll do them some good

The book goes into the mechanisms behind all of these things, again using analogies to aid in comprehension.

Verdict: Definitely recommend. It’s a pretty easy read which goes a long way to helping you understand your body and how and why it does what it does.