Yay, I'm excited for the first theme. I mentioned "The Great Influenza" in the theme post, so I'll share a bit more about it. It's a history of the Influenza pandemic of 1918, with a hearty share of turn-of-the-century epidemiology and viral biology. It primarily follows the careers of several medical researchers attempting to isolate influenza before it was known to be a virus.

It's really readable, and covers a lot of ground, so I'd suggest it as background material for anyone who, like me, is interested in the subject matter but doesn't have a lot of background in the way influenzas (or, for that matter, medical research) work.