A New York Times "Notable Book of the Year" in 1991, "Barons of the Sky" was lauded as "timely history of Americans living in an era of ninety-five-billion-dollar contracts for fighter planes" by Thomas P. Hughes in the New York Times Book Review and "thoroughly researched and admirably written" by Gregg Herken in the Washington Post Book World. It is a valuable antidote to myriad hagiographic accounts of the development of American aviation.

This comprehensive, non-heroworshipping history of the American aviation/weapons business unfortunately slipped out of print for a few years, but is now available again from Johns Hopkins with a new preface. It is still unparalleled for telling the story of a pivotal industry without being stupified either by government secrecy or corporate obfuscation. A must-read for anyone interested in "defense" issues.

A landmark book for the post-war generation of science journalists, "Coming to Terms" still reads as a magical blend of science and the humanities, enlivened by the sense of humor later seen in Biddle's "Field Guide to Germs" and "Field Guide to the Invisible." David Suter's illustrations also make this volume well worth finding.

A follow-up to the author's FIELD GUIDE TO GERMS, this is an introduction to all the unseen entities lurking in our environment and how we know what we know about them. The discussion of various chemical pollutants and disease organisms could have gotten really depressing if not for Biddle's quirky sense of humor. The alphabetical listing even includes such unquantifiable invisibles as God and Zeigeist. A surprising lot of science in an easy to swallow package. What more do you want?

Wayne Biddle deserves tremendous credit for this fun little book. In a highly readable and often highly amusing format he catalogues a "who's who" of "invisible" objects, organisms, ideas, and forces at work in every day life from allergens to burps, from carbon monoxide to dust, from gravity to mites, ozone to pheromones, quarks to wind.

Each entry gets a few paragraph to a few pages, often with intersting quotations from famous people on the subject, the history of the subject, and lots of other useful and often amusing information, though sometimes disquieting too. Did you know that some foods are "hot," that they are naturally more radioactive than others (Brazil nuts, thanks to the gamma-ray rich soil they are grown in, are 14,000 times more radioactive than most other fruits)? Did you know that 10% of our body weight is made up of bacteria? That cigarette smoke contains 1% carbon monoxide by volume (10,000 parts per million)? That a single transatlantic flight will expose a person to so much cosmic rays as to equal a whole-mouth dental X-ray series? That prions, small subviral "germs"," "can withstand boiling temperatures, X-rays, ultraviolet radiation, and sundry chemcial insults, like ten years in formaldehyde?" Oh yeah. What a wonderful world.

Not all of it is scary stuff though, and much of the invisible world, including such subjects as quarks, neutrinos, photons, water vapor, comet tails, and krypton are quite harmless to humans. Learn such interesting facts that the pheromones of the silkworm's moth is so powerful that a male moth can detect as little as one trillionth of a millionth of a gram per one thousandth of a liter! That quarks, the most basic bit of matter that can exist, are "point-particles," meaning they have no volume, and have a kind of charge, but negative or positive obut called "color" and having nothing to do with light! That of the four fundamental forces - electromagnetic force, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and gravity - gravity is arguably the weakest, yet unlike the others perhaps there is no known way to switch it off, shield from its effects, reverse, release it, or otherwise mess with it! Neat stuff. Maybe it IS a wonderful world after all.

All in all a fun and informative book, highly recommended.

It is a heartwarming book about the many viruses, bacteria, and pests that have made life for homo sapiens interesting for thousands of years. Herein you can read all about mumps, measles, and malaria (if you want to read about the pleasant diseases) or plague, anthrax, and rabies (if you want to read about the unpleasant ones). Each has a fascinating story to tell.

What can you do with this book? Well, you can read aloud the descriptions of gastrointestinal diseases at the dinner table. You can describe the diseases that cause hives with someone who is itchy. Or you can cheer up an old friend suffering from a disease by describing several diseases that are worse. This book is a barrel of laughs, I tell you. Get yours today.

For witty and informative science writing on a scary topic, you can't beat this little book. This entertaining as well as very informative little guide is about all the nasty little bugs that feed on us humans, written in a darkly humorous and even satirical style. You wouldn't think that a writer could make so many nasty diseases entertaining and even fun to read about, but Biddle has managed it in this great little book.

Besides the usual tropical diseases such as malaria and sleeping sickness, there are essays on things you've never heard of, and after reading about them, probably won't want to hear about ever again, such as Kala Azar, o-nyong-nyong, shigella (also known as dysentery), schistosomiasis, and many others.

Biddle also is adept at turning a phrase. For example, here is how he describes malaria: "The life cycle of the malaria trypanosome is one of nature's darksome wonders." A reviewer here mentioned another good one. Writing about the microbial fungus, candida albicans, he says "Even the most squeeky clean athlete has a lot in common with a rotten tree trunk."

The book consists of short essays, usually a page or two in length, on the natural history and pathology of bacteria, viruses and microbial disease-causing and other parasitic organisms. Although I was a biology major in college and took courses in microbiology and even virology, I still found this to be an interesting and informative book despite it's being aimed at the general reader. In fact, this is one of the most enjoyable pieces of science writing I've ever come across by chance.

This book is well worth your time and money, although it's certain to turn you into a hypochondriac. At the very least, you'll never want to set foot in the tropics or outside the borders of the U.S., with its 5-star sewage and plumbing, ever again.

I'm a professional microbiologist (and plague expert) and find this book to be succinct, accurate, and a pleasure to read. Sounds to me like the reviewer from Brooklyn might have a competing volume to sell. I've recommended this work and its previous edition for years to my students and colleagues. It's a rare example of science writing that is both informative and fun.