Where the Germs Are: A Scientific Safari

What do microbes have to do with your pets, your kids, your supermarket, your laundry, your sex life, your vacation at the beach, and your dinner plans for Saturday night? Plenty, as it turns out, and you'll learn all about in in Where the Germs Are.

This doesn't mean you have to panic, run out and buy every one of the more than 700 antibacterial products now on the market, dress in surgical scrubs, or live in a plastic bubble. In fact, most of the germs we live with are harmless, and some are positively delightful--like the ones that make grapes into wine, give yogurt its tang and cheeses their multitude of flavors, and lend sourdough bread its satisfying bite and aroma. But of course there are a nasty few that it would be good to avoid, and avoiding them means knowing something of the way they behave. Where the Germs Are is an intelligent, well-informed, scientifically accurate, and often delightfully funny guide to microbe county. Why not stop by for a spell--after all, you're already there.