With all the great fiction piled (unread) around my bed, sometimes it is hard to head out on vacation with a non-fiction medical book. It can feel a bit too much like work.

But I packed several for a recent long weekend and I wasn't disappointed. "The American
Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History," turned out to be so engrossing I didn't mind (much) when my mother was 90-minutes late picking me up.

This is a fabulous book. My only regret is not reading it in November when it was published. Thanks to the new paperback edition I finally corrected the oversight.

The yellow fever epidemic might be a tough sell in Memphis. It is a topic lots of us likely know a little about. What we know - thousands died, thousands more fled and the city nearly disappeared - hardly seems worth revisiting for nearly 300 pages.

Wrong.

The first third of the book focuses on the 1878 plague that decimated Memphis. The rest details the dangerous, epic and at times ghoulish efforts to understand what causes yellow fever and develop a vaccine to protect against it. It winds up with lessons for today.

The cast of characters includes Elmwood Cemetery, Walter Reed, a Nobel Prize winning scientist and Mary Louisa Angevine, whose near death in a farm house outside Grenada, Miss., during the 1878 epidemic offers the book's dramatic opening. The writing is so vivid that it would enliven any Memphis history class. Molly Caldwell Crosby, the author, brings alive not just the crisis, but also the politics of public health, the heroes (and the cads) the epidemic produced as well as the cosmopolitan spirit and vitality of Memphis that didn't survive the plague.

Crosby is a Memphis resident. The book's acknowledgements includes shout outs to folks at libraries, museums and on college campuses across the Mid-South.

But you should read this book for the kind of history likely to stick with you. You should read it for the details of a truly gruesome disease. You should read it for inspiring stories of sacrifice, courage and brilliance.

Meanwhile, share your recommendations for a good medical read.