The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters

by Rose George Narrated by Karen Cass

Overview

"One smart book . . . delving deep into the history and implications of a daily act that dare not speak its name." -Newsweek

Acclaimed as "extraordinary" (The New York Times) and "a classic" (Los Angeles Times), The Big Necessity is on its way to removing the taboo on bodily waste-something common to all and as natural as breathing. We prefer not to talk about it, but we should-even those of us who take care of our business in pristine, sanitary conditions. Disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, nearly two million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable.

Moving from the underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York (an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen) to an Indian slum where ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, The Big Necessity breaks the silence, revealing everything that matters about how people do-and don't-deal with their own waste. With razor-sharp wit and crusading urgency, mixing levity with gravity, Rose George has turned the subject we like to avoid into a cause with the most serious of consequences.

Editorial Reviews

Dwight Garner

Ms. George is the kind of writer—tenacious and clever—who will put you in mind of both Jessica Mitford (in her expose The American Way of Death) and Erin Brockovich. She is angry about what she discovers, and she offers the kind of memorable details that make her points stick…It's a busy, filthy, complicated world to which Ms. George has turned her estimable attentions. She is convincing when she writes, "to be uninterested in the public toilet"—or the private one, for that matter—"is to be uninterested in life."
—The New York Times

Kirkus Reviews

What's the single most significant factor in increasing the human life span? Forget antibiotics and penicillin-think toilets. "Eighty percent of the world's illness is caused by fecal matter," writes British journalist George (A Life Removed: Hunting for Refuge in the Modern World, 2004) in her stupefying exploration of how we address, or fail to address, the rising global tide of human waste. It's not just that 2.6 billion of the world's inhabitants lack access to a toilet of any kind, so that "four people in ten live in situations where they are surrounded by human excrement." Even toilets are no guarantee of proper feces disposal. Until a few years ago, Milan piped its waste directly into the river Lambro. When too much storm water overloads Milwaukee's treatment system, it dumps raw sewage into Lake Michigan, which supplies the city's drinking water. George writes unflinchingly and with great style on this rarely explored topic, agreeing with Freud that humanity's "wiser course would undoubtedly have been to admit [shit's] existence and dignify it as much as nature will allow." She sallies forth into the bowels of London with its wastewater operatives. She examines the robo-toilets of Japan, which do everything from washing and drying the private parts to checking blood pressure. She attends a World Toilet Organization conference and returns with more beneficial information than could ever be gathered from the other WTO. She visits with India's "manual scavengers," whose job is to remove feces wherever they present themselves, including the numerous dry latrines that consist of nothing more than two bricks. She considers the agricultural use of sludge-what's left after the water'sgone-in China and the United States. She familiarizes herself with innovations in latrine design, wastewater treatment, composting toilets and stabilization ponds. She turns a critical spotlight on our Puritanical shame of body products and advises us to wise up. There is a reason that most creatures, unlike humans, don't foul their nests. An utterly disarming and engrossing tour of all things excremental.

From the Publisher

"I will read anything George writes . . . She rips open her topics as if they were bags of chips . . . [The Big Necessity is] among the best nonfiction books of this still newish century."—-Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Written with tact, sensitivity, and the right amount of style, The Big Necessity makes a passionate argument for putting sanitation at the top of the world's development agenda.” —Time

“Superb...The Big Necessity belongs in a rare handful of studies that take a subject that seems fixed and familiar and taboo and makes us understand it is historically contingent and dazzlingly intriguing.” —Slate

“Always articulate and persuasive...You will be hard-pressed to put this extraordinary book down.” —The New York Times

“Rose George writes smart books about subjects we mostly prefer not to think about.…The Big Necessity is among the best nonfiction books of the new millennium.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“The Big Necessity, Rose George's perfectly disquieting new book, is very good…With wit, narrative skill, and compassion, it allows us to examine a major international public health nuisance…That's not to say that the book is all gloom and doom or a ponderous drag. In fact, it's a breeze. Ms. George is a lucid, supple writer, and approaching the subject as a journalist, she's able to tell her story on several different registers. And, quite honestly, the topic is fascinating.” —New York Observer

“[Written] with wit and style…Valuable and often entertaining…Should become a classic.” —Los Angeles Times

“Fascinating and eloquent.” —The Economist

“A persuasive volume.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Delves into the taboo subject with tact, sensitivity—and the right amount of style…George introduces the reader to a fascinating and enlightening universe.” —Time

“The weight of information that Rose George brings to The Big Necessity is astonishing...There are so many interesting stories in the book that I wanted to tell everyone about what I learned.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Full of fascinating facts…An intrepid, erudite and entertaining journey through the public consequences of this most private behavior.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“George leavens her serious, if unpalatable, topic with an elegant and witty prose style. An important book…strongly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“An utterly disarming and engrossing tour…George writes unflinchingly and with great style.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A unique, alarming, and strangely fascinating book…Witty, anecdotal, and sharply informative, George's far-reaching exposé ultimately recalibrates nothing less than our understanding of civilization.” —Booklist

“A very important book.…Rose George has done us a great service by taking something that we don't talk about nearly often enough and putting it right in our faces. Anyone heading overseas on a mission trip should read this book first. And anyone who wants to understand what it means to be poor.” —Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

“Rose George's subject—the global politics of defecation—is both superbly indelicate and morally imperative. With the basic health and dignity of several billion poor people at stake, we need to take shit seriously in the most literal sense. Human solidarity, as she so passionately demonstrates, begins with the squatting multitudes.” —Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums

“Which is worse? Living in a toilet or living without one? George bravely—and sometimes literally—submerges herself in the tragedy and occasional comedy of global sanitation. Sludge, biogas, New York City sewage: I ate it up and wanted more! The most unforgettable book to pass through the publishing pipeline in years.” —Mary Roach, author of Stiff

“This engaging, highly readable book puts sanitation in its proper place—as a central challenge in human development. Rose George has tackled this critical topic with insight, wit, and a storyteller's flair.” —Louis Boorstin, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

“Excellent…Definitely recommended.” —Tyler Cowen, author of Discover Your Inner Economist

“Rose George has trolled the gutters of the world for the predictable low-matter and come up with something weirdly spiritual. Worship the porcelain god, revere its ubiquity and protest its absence: George reveals that the act of private and sanitary defecation is the key to health, the wealth of nations, and even civilization itself.” —Lisa Margonelli, author of Oil on the Brain

“Highly recommended…One of the best nonfiction books I've read in years.” —Henry Gee, senior editor of Nature

“This fascinating, wise, and scrupulously drawn portrait of the world and its waste will last long as a seriously important book. Like a literary treatment farm, it manages to turn the completely unpalatable into something utterly irresistible. Rose George, a brave, compassionate, and ceaselessly impeccable reporter—and, when needed, a very funny one too—has performed for us all who care a very great service. A big necessity, indeed.” —Simon Winchester, author of The Man Who Loved China

“Throughout her exploration of the dark and pungent world of human waste and its disposal, George remains curious, sceptical, open-minded and remarkably good-humoured…She has written a tactful, outspoken, amusing, shocking, highly informative and useful book. It may even—if you read it carefully—change your life.” —Sunday Telegraph (UK)

“Will entertain and edify…A revealing global study that's thoroughly researched and written with both wit and moral seriousness.” —Daily Telegraph (UK)

“As far as I can tell, this is the first popular study to be written on the subject. And popular it deserves to be. Rose George has just the right kind of breezy-serious approach needed to grapple with the universal taboos.” —Daily Mail (UK)

“An invaluable contribution.” —The Guardian (UK)

“Bravely and ably meets the challenge…For daring to fling back the privy door, George deserves a medal.” —The Sunday Times (UK)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172263866
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	03/26/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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