Someone suggested that if I like Geraldine Brooks I might also like this. It was great! A combination of historical fiction--a genre I thought I didn’t like--and weird science/medicine topics. The title story, saved til last, is a harrowing account of the quarantine at Grosse Isle for the Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine. Enough human interest to be interesting. Enough medical detail to pique one’s interest in the whole topic. And through it all, it’s quite well written and offers a peek into the possible lives of long-dead scientists as well as some nice gender balance which I often find wanting in these sorts of books.

No idea where I get some of these books. This is a great collection of super short stories, most with no named protagonist. They’re magically realistic but not in that usual “then an angel appears” way but more like “here is an octopus, he lives in an apartment” sort of way. I really enjoyed the voice and the tone of these stories, plus the way many of them spoke of the sea.