Maybe it was the hype. Or maybe it was that it was written for a US audience; in general, the vaccination question seems to be less fraught here. But despite the beauty of this book – and the Fitzcarraldo Edition is an exceptionally beautiful object, with its night-sky blue French flaps and luxurious, creamy pages – and despite Biss’ lucid sentences and stylish blending of personal history with the wider issue of vaccination, which sustained me for the first quarter, I found it harder and harder to keep picking this book up. I’ll grant that I have read reasonably widely on the subject of vaccination, but for me On Immunity added nothing new to the debate. Overall, I was disappointed.