Osmundson is a biophysicist with a PhD from Rockefeller University who teaches at NYU.  This, his first book, collects 11 long essays about topics well described in the title.  The ‘Living’ refers to both the universe of life on our planet as well as Osmundson’s own personal life as a 30-something, gay man born at the end of the devastation of the AIDS epidemic and living in COVID lockdown in NYC.  The ‘Dead’ refers to both the victims of HIV, COVID, and other viral plagues as well as to the viruses themselves, non-living organisms that depend on human cells to reproduce and spread.  Finally, ‘the small things in between’ refer to those interactions between we humans and those viruses with superb chapters on viral biology, evolution, and the nuts and bolts of COVID.

This was another book in which I found a bookmark about halfway through its 317 densely written pages.   Osmundson is at his best in describing complex biology for the general reader.  His final chapter on evolution is  one of the very best descriptions of the biology of evolution that I’ve read.  On the other hand, his chapters that focus on his personal struggle as a gay teen in rural western Washington state and his vivid descriptions of gay sex were less engaging for me, and probably explain why I quit in the middle the first time through. Somewhere in the midst of those topics are his reflections on the AIDS epidemic and the devastation it brought  to the gay communities in the 1980’s and the parallel with the excess death rate in Black and Brown communities from COVID.

On balance, this is a good though not a great book.  Osmundson is a talented writer and will undoubtedly contribute in the future.  Whether he continues to try to write hybrids of the gay life and science, or focuses on one of the other remains to be seen.