First Book Analysis.

Do to the fact that biographies, text books, and basically everything that doesn't involve either dragons or time travel bores me, I have chosen to read the book Panic in Level 4, by Richard Preston for this assignment. The main reason I chose to read this book was because it said "Cannibals, killer viruses, and other journeys to the edge of science.", and that just sounded too cool to pass up. However I was slightly mislead, only two of the chapters in this book are about cannibals and killer viruses... but I digress. 

So once you get pass the 29 page introduction, the book actually starts to get very interesting. By simply reading the first sentence you can tell that Preston has done his research. He is a man who knows what he is talking about. The thing that makes his book so interesting is that he isn't an expert. While reading the book you can feel the same amount of wonder and amazement that he felt. Everything he learns is the most interesting thing ever, every man he meets is the most interesting man in the world. It's this excitement for his craft that keeps you engaged in the book.

His intent is to inform the people reading this book about all the topics that are featured. Nothing more. He provides no solutions to the problems explained, nor does he provide ways to even help. His subjects are simply interesting things that the average person would not be aware of. He is not trying to teach experts, he is trying to teach people who have never heard of Lesch-Nyhan disease, or the Ebola virus, or the Chudnovskys or a unicorn tapestry. Preston seems to be writing, not only to the un-informed, but also to a younger crowd. This is apparent in the way he uses smaller vocabulary words (and for the bigger ones that he doesn't explain there is a glossary... but who has the time for those...) and explains each minuscule thing in tremendous detail.

However, as much I love the astonished Mr. Preston, throughout the book he also takes the stance of the expert, or sensei as I like to call him. The interesting part about the sensei role is that it is told from a third party point of view. It's all the boring factual stuff that everyone skims over. Then it will switch back to Prestons banter and awe to wrap everything up. 

Richard Prestons reaction to everything.

So if I had to rate this book "creatively" out of five I would give it a 4 on how well it can hold my attention for a non-fiction book.