January 2013

I had originally discussed this concept with Yoni, who asked me to pick fiction over non-fiction. On his recent visit home, Noam expressed an interest in popular science reading..

Noam:
The mold on Dr. Florey's coat.
The history of the discovery of Penicillin and its later development has long been an interest of mine. It is a truly fascinating story because the well known version is clearly a fabrication and the real workers, for the most part, went unrewarded while Fleming the great showman, was lauded throughout the world.  Others, before Fleming had noticed the effects of certain molds on bacteria and Flemings original paper does describe this effect in some detail but clearly the chemistry was too much for him. There is no doubt he was a great microbiologist, he had after all discovered lysozyme earlier but the amount of adulation poured on hime was out of all proportion to his single paper with an observation which had already been made by Lister and others. /rant

This book describes the real work, isolating the strains which produced the most antibiotic, purification and scale-up to mass production told in an extremely entertaining way.


Yonatan:

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Gosh.
I told you that there would be a lot of historical fiction:-
It is the eve of the opium wars and a strange collection of people are washed ashore after their ship sinks. Not only are the characters well drawn but there is a wealth of information about the true heart of darkness of the Great British Empire.
I just happened upon this book on a display at the central library and loved it. There is a sequel which is every bit as good.


Enjoy...