2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator by Timothy C. Winegard.

Pages: 496 pages

Length: 1 month (August)

Participants: Lorraine, Beth

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

Here are some questions to help get the conversation started! Feel free to look up discussion questions specific to this book or come up with your own. Just make sure any questions that contain spoilers are under spoiler tags.
Discussion questions are not required but may be a fun way to talk about the book and get to know each other!

Prior to starting:
What prompted you to join this buddy read?
Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?

Mid-read:
What character or ideas do you relate to the most and why?
Do you have any favorite quotes or scenes?

After reading:
What was enjoyable or not-so-enjoyable about this book?
Did this book change your perception about anything, either within the book (character development) or in real life?

Hi Beth. I'll be starting this book today or tomorrow. I don't think I'll be able to do more than one chapter a day. We'll see.

Oufff… I’ve read the first two chapters, and wow, it’s feeling a bit too scientific for me. I’ll give it another two chapters before deciding, and I’ll let you know how it goes. I usually do my best to finish any book I pick for a buddy read, but this one might be one of the rare ones I can’t push through.

I gave it another two chapters, but I have to admit this book just isn't for me. Maybe it's not just the scientific content — I find myself getting lost in all the dates, events, history, and even the mosquito descriptions. I'm really sorry to let you down, but thankfully we have lots of exciting buddy reads coming up!

Ok, thanks for that feedback, Lorraine! I'm just starting today. I'll give it a go and see how it works for me.

I'm about halfway through, and I'm enjoying it. I'm using the audiobook; if I was reading it on Kindle I might be having a harder time with it. But as I've been running errands and doing chores, it's been interesting to listen to. There are lot of little facts that are new to me - it's believed that up to 10% of the world's population is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan (about 45 million people!); the 1666 plague in London killed about 25% of the population as two examples. It's feeling more like history itself than science; some chapters I forget that this a book about mosquitos for a number of pages.

Ugh. Just got to a point in the book where he's talking about the US government plan to get rid of Native Americans by giving them smallpox-infested blankets. It's appalling.

I have to say again, I enjoyed this. The technique he used of moving through history, a chapter at a time, kept the material well organized and understandable. It was really depressing to hear of all the government policies (the US and other countries) who had such detailed plans for "dealing with" undesirable people. The book was definitely well researched and clearly written.

As I said before, the audiobook helped me get through this. If I was reading, I would have plowed through, but I don't know if I'd be this upbeat about it.

I’ve never really used audiobooks regularly. I’ve only listened to them for challenging books like Ulysses or the Proust series, but not much beyond that. Maybe it’s time I give audiobooks a more serious try—your comments make me want to revisit this book in that format. Where do you usually get your audiobooks? From the library, or through some platform?

Mostly through libraries via Libby. I also have an Audible subscription. There's a site online called Librivox, a catalog of public domain books read by volunteer readers (no professionas; some are definitely better than others). I also have a Spotify subscription and get 15 hours' worth of audiobooks with that.

I have been using audiobooks a LOT more lately. Great for when I'm driving or stuck at the computer for a while. I typically borrow both the digital and audio book at the same time, then go back and forth between them.