The Penguin Podcast is back! Listen Now
Spillover

Spillover

the powerful, prescient book that predicted the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Summary

Read this gripping, timely book about the transmission of deadly viruses from animal to human populations, and how we can fight the current Covid-19 pandemic.

WITH A NEW AFTERWORD ON CORONAVIRUS

As globalization spreads and as we destroy the ancient ecosystems, we encounter strange and dangerous infections that originate in animals but that can be transmitted to humans. Diseases that were contained are being set free and the results are potentially catastrophic.

In a journey that takes him from southern China to the Congo, from Bangladesh to Australia, David Quammen tracks these infections to their source, and asks what we can do to prevent some new pandemic spreading across the face of the earth.

As we continue to feel the global impact of Covid-19, discover the book that predicted this viral disaster and the science that could stop the next one in its tracks.

'A tremendous book...this gives you all you need to know and all you should know' Sunday Times


'Chilling... [A] brilliant, devastating book' Daily Mail


'A frightening and fascinating masterpiece of science reporting that reads like a detective story' Walter Isaacson

Reviews

  • A frightening and fascinating masterpiece of science reporting that reads like a detective story
    Walter Isaacson

About the author

David Quammen

David Quammen's sixteen previous books include 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. He has written for the New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, the Atlantic, National Geographic and Outside, among other publications, 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 DavidQuammen.com
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more