Microbia: A Journey into the Unseen World Around You

by Eugenia Bone

Overview

From Eugenia Bone, the critically acclaimed author of Mycophilia, comes an approachable, highly personal look at our complex relationship with the microbial world.

While researching her book about mushrooms, Eugenia Bone became fascinated with microbes—those life forms that are too small to see without a microscope. Specifically, she wanted to understand the microbes that lived inside other organisms like plants and people. But as she began reading books, scholarly articles, blogs, and even attending an online course in an attempt to grasp the microbiology, she quickly realized she couldn’t do it alone.

That’s why she enrolled at Columbia University to study Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology. Her stories about being a middle-aged mom embedded in undergrad college life are spot-on and hilarious. But more profoundly, when Bone went back to school she learned that biology is a vast conspiracy of microbes. Microbes invented living and as a result they are part of every aspect of every living thing. This popular science book takes the layman on a broad survey of the role of microbes in nature and illustrates their importance to the existence of everything: atmosphere, soil, plants, and us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623367350
Publisher:	Harmony/Rodale
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	645,563
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Eugenia Bone is a nationally recognized journalist, food writer, and former president of the New York Mycological Society. She is the author of Mycophilia, The Kitchen Ecosystem, At Mesa’s Edge, Italian Family Dining, and Well Preserved. Her books have been nominated for a variety of awards, including a James Beard Award, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Saveur, Food & Wine, and Gourmet, among others.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Microbia"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Eugenia Bone.
Excerpted by permission of Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 Six Ingredients Connect Us All 1

Chapter 2 How Microbes Created the Air We Breathe 16

Chapter 3 The Impossible Microbial Species Concept 32

Chapter 4 A Marriage of Microbes 51

Chapter 5 Microbes Make Landfall 64

Chapter 6 The Soil Microbiome 80

Chapter 7 Soil without Microbes 102

Chapter 8 The Plant Microbiome 121

Chapter 9 Your Microbiome Is a Park 142

Chapter 10 Our Microbiomes 161

Chapter 11 Germophobia and Microbiomania 179

Chapter 12 The Earth Microbiome 203

Acknowledgments 222

Notes 226

Index 265

Editorial Reviews

"Nowhere else have I read such a sizzling combination of personal experiences and conceptual insights. Microbia is nothing short of wonderful.”
—Moselio Schaechter, past president, American Society for Microbiology

“Countless tales have been told of the lives of microbes, but none more arresting than Eugenia Bone’s telling in Microbia.”
—Wes Jackson, President Emeritus, The Land Institute

From the Publisher