On Immunity: An Inoculation - Softcover

Biss, Eula

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555977200 ISBN 13: 9781555977207

Publisher: Graywolf Press, 2015

Synopsis

The hugely acclaimed New York Times Best Seller, now available in paperback!

*A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist*

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2014:
The New York Times Book Review (Top 10), Entertainment Weekly (Top 10), New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune (Top 10), Publishers Weekly (Top 10), Time Out New York (Top 10), Los Angeles Times, Kirkus, Booklist, NPR's Science Friday, Newsday, Slate, Refinery 29, and many more...

In this bold, fascinating book, Eula Biss addresses our fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what may be in our children's air, food, mattresses, medicines, and vaccines. Reflecting on her own experience as a new mother, she suggests that we cannot immunize our children, or ourselves, against the world. As she explores the metaphors surrounding immunity, Biss extends her conversations with other mothers to meditations on the myth of Achilles, Voltaire's Candide, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Susan Sontag's AIDS and Its Metaphors, and beyond. On Immunity is an inoculation against our fear and a moving account of how we are all interconnected-our bodies and our fates.

About this title

About the Author:

Eula Biss is the author of The Balloonists and Notes from No Man's Land, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism and which Salon deemed "the most accomplished book of essays anyone has written or published so far in the twenty-first century." Her work has appeared in The Believer, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Times. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Howard Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in the Chicago area and teaches at Northwestern University.

Review:

“Subtle, spellbinding . . . Sontag said she wrote Illness as Metaphor to ‘calm the imagination, not to incite it,' and On Immunity also seeks to cool and console . . . [Biss] advances from all sides, like a chess player, drawing on science, myth, literature to herd us to the only logical end, to vaccinate.” ―Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Book Review

“By exploring the anxieties about what's lurking inside our flu shots, the air, and ourselves, [Biss] drives home the message that we are all responsible for one another. On Immunity will make you consider that idea on a fairly profound level.” ―Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A)

“On Immunity . . . weaves metaphor and myth, science and sociology, philosophy and politics into a tapestry rich with insight and intelligence.” ―Jerome Groopman, The New York Review of Books

“A philosophical look at the history and practice of vaccination that reads like Joan Didion at her best. If you are yourself a nonfiction author, your initial response to this book might be to decide immediately on another line of work; Biss is that intimidatingly talented . . . .This is cultural commentary at its highest level, a searching examination of the most profound issues of health, identity and the tensions between individual parenting decisions and society.” ―The Washington Post

“[An] elegant, intelligent and very beautiful book, which occupies a space between research and reflection, investigating our attitudes toward immunity and inoculation through a personal and cultural lens.” ―Los Angeles Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1555977200
• ISBN 13: 9781555977207
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224