The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator

This narrative weaving of science and history is well done and engaging. I was surprised by how short the time that the mosquito was really “a problem” for North America, and also how challenging mosquito-born disease has been, and continues to be, for people throughout the world.

I enjoyed learning this layer of history - like the book, Salt, the Mosquito gives you a hyper focused view of one major influence on human development along with the bigger picture.

I'd recommend this book for people who enjoy history and science. It'd be fine for junior high on up.

Creepy at times; the first chapter reminded me of the horror flick I was shown during Driver's Ed [ucation] called “Blood on the Highway”, which was intended to show all the horrors of not driving safely.

I found this one rather tough because all the numbers that were presented began to blur and desensitize me in the fact I began to scan thru the book. It did impress on me the amount of research the author, and the many other researchers he relied on, had to have done to inform their readers. It was also a tough read because of the number of words used to get a message across. Maybe someone who does scanning might enjoy this but I don't.

I'm glad I did read the book as I would never have understood the impact the mosquito has had.

I was looking for an audiobook to listen to while I ran, so I picked this one out. Got to 17% and had to quit. The author's whole point is that mosquitos kill more people than anything else, but the language is so unnecessarily dramatic, I just couldn't. At the same time, it was like he struggled for content so he just included lots of depth about slight related things: Alexander the Great and the Greek philosophers, microbes that live in water, and dinosaurs.
So yeah, no thanks.