Interesting book, but too much information
Although The Great Mortality is a well-written book, it is not what I was expecting to read. The author, sometimes, focuses too much on telling individual stories and "forgets" to write about the Black Death itself. John Kelly does a good job in this book, after all, we don't have much reliable information about the Black Death (it happened a long time ago, medical knowledge was almost non-existent and the records, when available, are full of errors). Yersinia Pestis claimed many lives in the fourteenth century. By reading this book, I learned how the bacteria spread across Europe. No, we don't have only the black rat to blame. Climate changes, lifestyle, lack of medical knowledge, a whole generation of adults with a weak immunological system also contributed to the Black Death. In conclusion, it is a good book that could be shorter!