Zanza is a mosquito and, being a Buddhist, believes she has lived through many thousands of short lifetimes, but she can’t recall a single one of them before she met Herbert. Not that Herbert is particularly memorable. On their first meeting, Zanza viewed this unexceptional human as nothing more than a quick snack opportunity.But then, having sipped from the cup of a Mayan demi-god, Zanza is blessed with a new and profound self-awareness and begins to see her host, not just as a ‘blood bag’, but as a distinct personality. From that point on, with every sip of his blood, with every small death, with every re-incarnation, Zanza learns something new about Herbert. She begins to understand what it is to be human, to feel something like love, to contemplate a chance for immortality.For his part, Herbert, a misanthropic cameraman on assignment in Guatemala, remains oblivious to his involvement in this blossoming relationship. His mind is gripped by a rapidly rising fever, and he is not sure if what he experiences in the dense forests around Tikal is real or a Malaria-induced hallucination. Vampire Monkeys, Zombie Accountants, Golden Warriors that walk through walls, it all starts getting far too weird. But this is a special moment in the world’s history and even the dull witted Herbert finally realises he has a role to play.It’s December 2012, the Mayan Calendar is about to reset to zero and the world is about to end.

**The instant New York Times bestseller.** *An international bestseller.* Finalist for the Lane Anderson Award Finalist for the RBC Taylor Award “Hugely impressive, a major work.”—NPR A pioneering and groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that offers a dramatic new perspective on the history of humankind, showing how through millennia, the mosquito has been the single most powerful force in determining humanity’s fate Why was gin and tonic the cocktail of choice for British colonists in India and Africa? What does Starbucks have to thank for its global domination? What has protected the lives of popes for millennia? Why did Scotland surrender its sovereignty to England? What was George Washington's secret weapon during the American Revolution? The answer to all these questions, and many more, is the mosquito. Across our planet since the dawn of humankind, this nefarious pest, roughly the size and weight of a grape seed, has been at the frontlines of history as the grim reaper, the harvester of human populations, and the ultimate agent of historical change. As the mosquito transformed the landscapes of civilization, humans were unwittingly required to respond to its piercing impact and universal projection of power. The mosquito has determined the fates of empires and nations, razed and crippled economies, and decided the outcome of pivotal wars, killing nearly half of humanity along the way. She (only females bite) has dispatched an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion throughout our relatively brief existence. As the greatest purveyor of extermination we have ever known, she has played a greater role in shaping our human story than any other living thing with which we share our global village. Imagine for a moment a world without deadly mosquitoes, or any mosquitoes, for that matter? Our history and the world we know, or think we know, would be completely unrecognizable. Driven by surprising insights and fast-paced storytelling, The Mosquito is the extraordinary untold story of the mosquito’s reign through human history and her indelible impact on our modern world order.

Here, Unt rather blasphemously weaves this national icon and her Latvian doctor husband into a postmodern tale of vampires and a mysterious trip to Leningrad.

Of the 620,000 soldiers who perished during the American Civil War, the overwhelming majority died not from gunshot wounds or saber cuts, but from disease. In this ground-breaking medical history, Andrew McIlwaine Bell explores the impact of two terrifying mosquito-borne maladies---malaria and yellow fever---on the major political and military events of the 1860s, revealing how deadly microorganisms carried by a tiny insect helped shape the course of the Civil War.

“A life story, beautifully narrated and illustrated with a wealth of photos and maps, is a captivating account of the drama of the twentieth century. From your proud roots in a devoted family of immigrants to the Canadian West, through your dedicated sacrifices during World War II, to your present status as a venerated patriarch of a lovely family and an honoured citizen of Canada, the Diary has a personal feel to it, even though it offers a panoramic sweep through events that shaped the contemporary world. I confess that when I began to read the book this afternoon, I could not put it down until I had reached the final pages

It is rare for a foreign woman to be accepted for instruction in intensive meditation in a Buddhist temple in Thailand. Jane Hamilton-Merritt writes about this experience from the inside, describing the extraordinary journey into the self, the expansion of her consciousness. In a personal account of her struggles, her fears and her experiences - some euphoric, some terrifying, some beautiful in the form of psychedelic visions and some that were genuinely threatening. A Meditator's Diary is an intellectually disciplined attempt to understand what Buddhist meditation techniques have to offer us, those in the Western world caught up in a cycle of destruction that we cannot control, and shows how to access its secrets. Jane Hamilton-Merritt describes her own dawning understanding of 'compassion without attachment', her eventual arrival at a state of peace and reconciliation and the sense of living flow with the whole of the universe that has transformed her life. Encouraging her readers to try meditation she describes how we can take the first steps on the long road to tranquillity for ourselves.

The correspondence between Sir Ronald Ross (1857-1932) and Sir Patrick Manson (1844-1922) is rich in both scientific and human terms. It records, in great detail, Ross's research in India between 1895 and 1899, which elucidated the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of malaria, work for which Ross was awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology. Ross described the mosquito-transmission theory as Manson's 'Grand Induction', and he had returned to India, where he was an officer in the Indian Medical Service, having been primed by Manson. Ross's regular letters to his mentor document the frustrations and false trails as well as the excitement of discovery. Manson in turn acted as a kind of agent in London, publicising his findings, offering advice and seeking to use his influence to secure for Ross the working conditions he so desired. These 173 letters, plus 85 from the two decades after Ross's return to Britain also record the rise and full of a relationship, as Ross's preoccupation with his place in the history of malariology led to a breach between the two men. Themes of priority, nationalism, and personal vanity punctuate this latter correspondence, which also reveals new insights about the golden years of tropical medicine. Ross included some of the correspondence in his Memoirs, but most of it appears here, fully annotated, for the first time.