“Invisible Friends: How Microbes Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us,” written by a microbial ecologist, tackles a topic of our day, the new understanding that our worlds—the earth, our bodies, everything around us—are filled with uncountable numbers of “invisible friends,” namely bacteria, viruses, and other microbes. Nothing on Earth, not even us, stands alone and apart from a vast equilibrium/disequilibrium of microbes. Jake Robinson is a cogent, conversational stylist with admirable clarity of expression and as he delineates how microbes can both harm (Covid-19, say) and preponderantly aid us, it feels like a shifting of consicuosness. Even if you rebel against notions of “Gaia” and “deep ecology,” the author’s patient work depicting our “old friends” battling against antibiotics, aiding our health and longevity, buttressing our soils, forests, and crops, and providing new insights in fields as diverse as forensics and space exploration … all his patient labor presents a new, inescapable worldview. More than a fascinating, engaging read, Invisible Friends should be required reading for current and upcoming generations.
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