On Immunity: An Inoculation

‘Sontag said she wrote Illness as Metaphor to “calm the imagination, not to incite it,” and On Immunity also seeks to cool and console. But where Sontag was imperious, Biss is stealthy. She advances from all sides, like a chess player, drawing on science, myth, literature to herd us to the only logical end, to vaccinate.’
— Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

‘Mesmerizing’
— New Yorker

‘On Immunity is brave because it will attract hostility from those she implies are selfish or misguided in refusing to vaccinate. Her arguments are profoundly compelling, and her narratives are braided together with beauty and elegance. The book is itself an inoculation – it grafts and unites different traditions of the essay, and in doing so creates something stronger and more resilient. And its urgent message is an inoculation against ignorance and fearmongering: may it spread out through the world, bringing substance and common sense to the vaccination debate.’
— Gavin Francis, Guardian

‘Like so many great nonfiction classics, On Immunity will teach, provoke, chafe, inspire, haunt, and likely change its many readers. Its central, difficult, and ecstatic premise – that “we owe each other our bodies” – couldn’t be more urgent, as the question of how we contend with this interdependence, this collectivity, is fundamental to our human present and future.’
— Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts