Credit where properly due

[threemonkeys]

It has been a little while since I last read a book that gripped me so much that I couldn't put it down and stayed up many hours later than normal just to read it. Such was the case last night with The Mould on Dr Florey's Coat by Eric Lax. It is the compelling, extensively researched and superbly written story of the development of Penicillin. It starts of course with Fleming but concentrates mostly on the work done at Oxford by Florey and others to create a usable drug and determine if it would be effective. Science writing really does not get any better than this. It manages to illustrate the science, the people and the politics and still be completely readable. It reads like a really good detective story - which of course it really is.