The Hidden Zoo Inside You

The Hidden Zoo Inside You

An illustrated guide to pesky organisms and pandemics

Dr. Allen Jones, MD


This illustrated guide provides the foundations of infectious disease required to understand pandemics.

Hand-drawn and printed by the author, it presents a vast amount of information in plain language aided by simple illustrations, breaking down complicated topics into humorous, bite-sized facts. Diseases include Plague, Smallpox, Influenza, COVID, and a host of others, as well as the geography, history, zoology and disaster management required for context.

It assumes the reader has no science background and is aimed at those aged 12–99 but is also rich with information that will create common ground between health professionals, educators, students, parents, and politicians.


Download book excerpt: The Hidden Zoo Inside You — Excerpt (10MB)


About the Author

After completing a BSc in zoology and MSc in neuroscience, Jones received his MD from the University of British Columbia and went on to become a General Practitioner certified in Addiction Medicine. He started writing (and drawing) The Hidden Zoo Inside You in 2021 during quarantine after he realized the extent of misinformation regarding the coronavirus, and was further motivated by his passion for explaining and demystifying the language of medicine to his patients.

When not working on his book or with his patients, Jones enjoys rock climbing and travelling. He currently lives in Vancouver, BC.


Editions

All editions feature full-colour pages, and hand-drawn, and hand-lettered content.
Dimensions: 8.5″ x 11″.

Softcover

• $39.95 CAD, $29.95 USD
• Print on demand: $49.95 CAD $34.95 USD
ISBN: 9781989467763, 9781989467664 (POD)

Where to find it:

Hardcover

$54.95 CAD, $39.95 USD
ISBN: 9781989467725

Where to find it:

Ebook

$9.99 CAD, $9.99 USD
ISBN: 9781989467671

Where to find it:


Reviews

The Hidden Zoo Inside You: An Illustrated Guide To Pesky Organisms and Pandemics

The Hidden Zoo Inside You is Allen Jones’s fascinating, funny illustrated guide to microscopic organisms and the problems they can create. …Stuffed with an incredible amount of information. …Warmth, humor, and enthusiasm permeate the hand-drawn and lettered book. …[It] is a thorough, understandable graphic history of microbes and disease, presenting facts with a unique and appealing visual style.”
— Foreword Reviews

“Jones’ artwork features hand-drawn sketches, accompanied by …in-the-margins notes that recall Randall Munroe’s popular web comic xkcd…there is a definite sense of thoroughness to the work that makes it unnecessary to be an expert in the subject matter to follow its many explanations. …Like any good work of comic art, the subject dictates the reader’s pace, and this is certainly a resource that one should take time to pore over and not rush through…An expansive and informative epidemiological look at viruses.”
— Kirkus Reviews

…an odd, charmingly quirky book that draws on the author’s medical expertise and his artistic talents, plus his amiable sense of humour, to deliver an impressive amount of information for lay readers. …imagine a graphic novel like Maus meeting Gray’s Anatomy. This is an example of what effective public health education should look like, and too rarely does …Sound information and amiable good sense are welcome in times like these and The Hidden Zoo delivers both. Highly recommended.
— Vancouver Sun

“It’s rare for a book about infections to appeal equally to the lay public as well as healthcare professionals.”

— BC Bookworld

Read the full review

Now, we have an easy-to-read and digest book that goes to great lengths to explain medical basics and put this pandemic in perspective relative to past (and inevitably, future) diseases.

The result is far from the dry or highly technical volume that might be expected on such a potentially intimidating range of topics.

One great strength of the book is the detailed, step-by-step explanations, including tables, diagrams, and other graphics, of how each major disease outbreak evolves.

— British Columbia Reviews

“This is a monumental project admirably accomplished by a family physician… Medical and scientific jargon is skillfully explained… The historical facts and scientific background have been well researched… This book is primarily targeting teens and lay adults but is also a welcome review for healthcare professionals dealing with infectious diseases. The enlightening illustrations accompanied by ample humor make… much more interesting reading than cut and dried medical or scientific papers.”
— Dr. Anthony Chow, MD
Professor Emeritus of Infectious Disease
University of British Columbia

“A delightful approach to introducing complex scientific and technical subjects through sketches, diagrams,
charts. even doodles! …Just open the book at any page, plunge in, and enjoy.”
— Dr. Tim Sly, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology
Toronto Metropolitan University