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Published Oct 2018
368 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
An eye-opening exploration of blood, the lifegiving substance with the power of taboo, the value of diamonds and the promise of breakthrough science.
Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don't even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquitousness, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo: menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event.
Rose George, author of The Big Necessity, is renowned for her intrepid work on topics that are invisible but vitally important. In Nine Pints, she takes us from ancient practices of bloodletting to modern "hemovigilance" teams that track blood-borne diseases. She introduces Janet Vaughan, who set up the world's first system of mass blood donation during the Blitz, and Arunachalam Muruganantham, known as "Menstrual Man" for his work on sanitary pads for developing countries. She probes the lucrative business of plasma transfusions, in which the US is known as the "OPEC of plasma." And she looks to the future, as researchers seek to bring synthetic blood to a hospital near you.
Spanning science and politics, stories and global epidemics, Nine Pints reveals our life's blood in an entirely new light.
BookBrowse Review
"Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood shares compelling stories about blood, but the nine chapters feel like essays in a collection rather than the singular journey George titularly promises. The book is compelling, informative, and interesting; however, the pacing amplifies cohesion issues as George oscillates between historical deep dives and rapid-fire factoids." - Adrienne Pisch
Other Reviews
"Starred Review. An intensive, humanistic examination of blood in all its dazzling forms and functions." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. Recommended for nonexperts curious about their own bodies and blood as commodity in the world economy." - Library Journal
"Noting that 'every three seconds, somewhere in the world, a person receives a stranger's blood,' this wide-reaching, lively survey makes clear that blood has become a 'commodity that is dearer than oil.'" - Publishers Weekly
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rose George began writing in 1994, as an intern at The Nation magazine in New York. Later, she became senior editor and writer at COLORS magazine, the bilingual “global magazine about local cultures” published in 80 countries and based first in Rome, then Paris, then Venice. In 1999, she moved to London and began a freelance career, and has since written for the Guardian, Independent, Arena, London Review of Books and others. Along the way, she has been war correspondent in Kosovo for Condé Nast Traveler magazine and a guest at Saddam Hussein’s birthday party, twice. She is currently associate editor for Tank, a quarterly magazine of fashion, art, reportage and culture based in London.
She received her congratulatory first-class honours BA in modern languages from ...
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