David Quammen’s latest book, National Book Award finalist Breathless, tells the story of the worldwide scientific race to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and make possible the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on interviews with nearly one hundred scientists, including leading virologists in China and around the world, Quammen explains that Infectious disease experts saw this pandemic coming. Some scientists, for more than two decades, warned that “the next big one” would be caused by a changeable new virus—very possibly a coronavirus—but such warnings were ignored for political or economic reasons. The precise origins of this virus may not be known for years, but some clues are compelling, and some suppositions can be dismissed. This coronavirus will probably be a “forever virus.” And much more.
David Quammen’s books include Breathless, The Tangled Tree, The Song of the Dodo, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, and Spillover, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Premio Letterario Merck, in Rome. He has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and Outside, among other magazines, and is a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award. Quammen shares a home in Bozeman, Montana, with his wife, Betsy Gaines Quammen, author of American Zion, and with two Russian wolfhounds, a cross-eyed cat, and a rescue python. Visit him at www.DavidQuammen.com
