Wright (It Ended Badly: Thirteen of the Worst Breakups in History) writes that we have been living in "an age of improbable luck" because we have not seen an outbreak of a disease that we don't know how to fight; core countries (her term for developing countries) have not had to battle diseases such as plagues that kill thousands of people. In this volume, Wright provides a historical overview of 13 diseases, including bubonic plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, and polio, that decimated populations. Along with a description of each disease, Wright includes tales about ways that society dealt with the outbreaks and those individuals who dedicated their lives to learning about the spread of the disease and to finding a cure. These were remarkable individuals who were selfless in their pursuits: Jonas Salk and polio, Oliver Sacks and encephalitis lethargica, and Father Damien, who ministered to lepers. VERDICT The author's prose is jaunty, lively, and filled with references to contemporary cultural history, making this work a well-researched page-turner. Readers will get an intense dose of history, written in a not-hard-to-swallow style.—Patricia Ann Owens, formerly with Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel