What is Arthur Allen reading?

The latest contributor to Writers Read: Arthur Allen, a Washington-based journalist who has written for the New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate and Salon.

His book Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver was published earlier this year.

Part of Allen's report on his recent reading:

It being summer, I've also engaged in the relaxing art of book roulette. This means wandering into a summer rental or a friend's house, picking up things that look interesting, and reading them. For example Gore Vidal's memoir, Palimpsest, and, implausibly, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, which I had never read. I found it as compelling as a non-believer can, I guess. [Read on]

The Page 69 Test: Vaccine.

Writers Read: Arthur Allen.

--Marshal Zeringue