I Contain Multitudes

The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Select a format:

Retailers:

Amazon Apple Books Google Play Hive Kobo

Summary

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE

Your body is teeming with tens of trillions of microbes. It's an entire world, a colony full of life.

In other words, you contain multitudes.

They sculpt our organs, protect us from diseases, guide our behaviour, and bombard us with their genes. They also hold the key to understanding all life on earth.

In I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong opens our eyes and invites us to marvel at ourselves and other animals in a new light, less as individuals and more as thriving ecosystems.

You'll never think about your mind, body or preferences in the same way again.

'Super-interesting... He just keeps imparting one surprising, fascinating insight after the next. I Contain Multitudes is science journalism at its best' Bill Gates

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2017

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2017

Reviews

Super-interesting... He just keeps imparting one surprising, fascinating insight after the next. I Contain Multitudes is science journalism at its best
Bill Gates

About the author

Ed Yong

Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist who reports for The Atlantic. His work has also featured in National Geographic, the New Yorker, Wired, Nature, New Scientist, Scientific American, and many other publications. His first book, I Contain Multitudes, was a New York Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Prize. Ed's TED talk on mind-controlling parasites has been watched by over 1.5 million people.

You can find him on Twitter at @edyong209

Ed Yong's first book, I Contain Multitudes, about the amazing partnerships between microbes and animals, was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the Wellcome Book Prize. It was a New York Times bestseller. He is a science writer on the staff of The Atlantic, where he won the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Polk Award for science reporting, among other honours. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Wired, The New York Times, Scientific American, and more. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Learn More