I listened to this one on audiobook, which is probably good because I read a review about the footnotes not being that helpful, and one of my pet peeves is making me read footnotes that don't add anything to the book.

Anyway, this book does not have to be this long. The author clearly did his research, but way too much is included in this. I picked it up expecting a book just about the virus, and instead got maybe 40-50% of interesting epidemiology and history of it. The beginning 30% and last 20% of this book discuss the history of medical education in the US, political figures and standings at the time, and more information about various characters who, sure, contributed to the main story here, but whom I'm not really interested in hearing about. The writing is also definitely repetitive - if I had to hear the phrase "it was only influenza" ONE MORE TIME...

Although, it was interesting reading this with knowing about the pandemic we all experienced in 2020. The author speculated about the next pandemic, and hoped that we would prepare and be ready, and we weren't.