The Gene

"In The Gene: An Intimate History ( public library ), physician and Pulitzer-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee offers a rigorously researched, beautifully written detective story about the genetic components of what we experience as the self, rooted in Mukherjee’s own painful family history of mental illness and radiating a larger inquiry into how genetics illuminates the future of our species."

"Siddhartha Mukherjee is a first-rate science writer, who makes even the trickiest bits of biology easy to understand. But The Gene, his disarming study of what’s known and believed about inheritance, is really a story about people — about the way blind luck, missed opportunities and misguided ambition can win or lose the day in scientific research and life. “Science is an endurance sport,” Mukherjee writes. Take, for example, Austrian monk Gregor Mendel, who planted his famous peas only after twice failing his exams to teach high school science. There is much humor and warmth in Mukherjee’s book, but he also chronicles the devastating history of eugenics. For anyone eager to learn more about the real promise and limits of “personalized medicine,” to understand where we’ve been and where we’re headed, The Gene is an insightful guide."