I borrowed the audiobook version of this book through Libby, and listened to it over a couple of hours. Having just finished 'the story of tea' which was 16 hours long, this was a walk in the park at 6 pleasant hours of quick listening.
The book gives a quick history of humanity's relationship with yeast, the different contexts it's used in, lots and lots of biology and genetics of the microorganism, and other societal and contemporary matters around it, including yeast supplements, the 'anti-yeast' movement, and diseases caused by the different species of yeast.
I liked the book, I'll give it 8.5/10.
The other is a leading mycologist who studied under the tutelage of his icon, an expert researcher who kept working independently after retiring and kept making new discoveries. Perhaps it is his technical background that causes him to misjudge the audience of the book. For even though it claims to be a 'social' pop-sci book, there are several hours of extremely technical genetic, and reproduction related chapters that I didn't really care for. I'm glad to know there's so much happening, but it was an unexpected bio-technology angle that didn't feel right for a book with the title it has.
Having said that, everything else was well-written and presented. While I would have liked to read more historical account across different parts of the world, this was a modern introduction to yeast, still quite good.
I'd recommend this to people who are not uncomfortable reading about genetics and molecular biotechnology. I didn't mind it, but others might be a bit bored, considering this to be more of a text book than a pop-sci one.
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