Ben Downing’s Queen Bee of Tuscany brings an extraordinary Victorian back to life.
Actually, that's exactly what it fails to do. Filled with details, QBen Downing’s Queen Bee of Tuscany brings an extraordinary Victorian back to life.
Actually, that's exactly what it fails to do. Filled with details, Queen Bee lacks story. Janet Ross' voice is muffled by Downing's own explanations of her life and her role in a fascinating community, leaving us with dry text, rather than any sense of real life. ...more
This was not the book I was expecting, although it turned out to be quite interesting. As an epidemiology junkie, I found the first third of the book,This was not the book I was expecting, although it turned out to be quite interesting. As an epidemiology junkie, I found the first third of the book, in which Piot played a key role in the investigation of the first Ebola Zaire outbreak, fascinating. I have read a fair amount regarding that diseases and investigation and it's always interesting to see it from another perspective.
After Ebola, Piot turned to STDs and was perfectly positioned to be one of the first to see AIDS coming upon us. His work moved from clinic and lab to public activism and policy and eventually to his becoming the first head of UNAIDS. That's a story less about disease than about diplomacy, juggling the hundreds of different stakeholding organizations in pursuit of a global strategy for combating the epidemic.
His story of bringing AIDS to the halls of power is slow at times, but Piot never becomes jaded, relishing the opportunities he has had to meet with world leaders and present the information to them in a compelling way. As the book progresses, it becomes a fascinating study of how the world really works. ...more
This was a fantastic look not only at the life and work of an incredible woman, but at a fascinating and tumultuous period in the history of the MiddlThis was a fantastic look not only at the life and work of an incredible woman, but at a fascinating and tumultuous period in the history of the Middle East, problems then that are problems now, and how the solutions of that era have--in many cases--become the problems of today. ...more
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