Power Unseen: How Microbes Rule the World

Bernard Dixon Freeman, £16.99, pp 237 ISBN 0-7167-4504-6

Those frightened by the tabloid press's hysteria over the “flesh-eating virus” should spend any resulting wakeful nights reading Bernard Dixon's book. Although published too early to include necrotising fasciitis (indeed, it barely mentions Streptococcus pyogenes), this is a topical and informative amalgam of 75 vignettes about micro-organisms and their complex relations with Homo sapiens.

A refreshing air of scientific interest and common sense pervades, and I was reminded of the popular science books written by Isaac Asimov that caught the interest of many of my generation in the 1960s. Followers of Dr Dixon's regular contributions to …