I, Parasite

What would a parasite tell about itself if it could speak? It would deliver an impassioned speech in defense of its own species! “You’re disgusted—you don’t want to know: parasites interfere with our lives. They’re uninvited guests who settle not somewhere else, but inside us—right into our bodies!” Is there anything more vile in the world? But if curiosity and a passion for knowing still get the upper hand, the popular science book “Me, a Parasite” will open for you a crazy, scandalous, absolutely fascinating world of facts about how living organisms manage to coexist—and will turn your understanding of the harms and benefits of parasites upside down. The voice to the voiceless creatures belongs to French evolutionary geneticist Pierre Kerner, author of the globally famous blog “Strange Things and Cool Stuff”—and he makes it incredibly engaging and laugh-out-loud funny, with not a trace of dry scholarly stiffness. In truly astonishing first-person stories, very different characters will tell you about their lives—from a tapeworm to a virus. Each of them has a unique, vivid, expressive personality, and the narrators are bold, emotional—and, without question, biased. Let’s see whether they can convince you that they—the parasites—are the main actors in maintaining the fragile balance of relationships between all living things.