The Gene

Got about a quarter of the way through, but was struggling and never wanted to listen. Just not in the mood right now. Will try again in the future as I loved The Emperor of All Maladies.

Siddhartha Mukherjee has that rare quality of making it sound like he's cramming a bucketload of information in his words, all the while not losing brevity. In The Emperor of All Maladies, this quality was suppressed – the topic of cancer is weighty, and thus brevity was preserved over information density. This quality is out in full force in Gene, so you must take a breather every fifty or sixty pages.
Genecovers so much information about genetics that after finishing it, you will feel that you have absorbed those information pellets sometimes found in science fiction. It follows a similar pathway to The Emperor, with Mukherjee tracking the story of genetics from its ancestors (including debunked theories such as the sperm-containing mini-children) to the present, where we're making quantum leaps in the field every few years.
Aside from its remarkable history, the novel delves into the gene and what makes it tick. For example - how mutations mess with (or improve) a genome, how DNA can be combined to form recombinant DNA not generally found on a genome, how gene editing works, and how our genome can have a genetic ‘memory' of sorts.
More soberly, however, Mukherjee illuminates the reader with digressions centred on his family – and how mental illness was so pervasive in his family. It lends the entire novel a human touch that you cannot help but reflect on. Saying that the gene has been at the forefront of modern is something else, but saying that it has impacted the author's life brings it into some perspective – not missing the trees for the forest, if you will.
Gene is a rich and illuminating history of genetics and digressions into its probable future. I am not sure where genetics will land in even twenty years – but I now know watching the field progress will be breathtaking.

Un libro magnifico y maravilloso, una historia (del gen) impresionante, contada de una forma simplemente magistral. Después de leer este libro cambia (o reafirma) tu forma de ver la vida. Disfrute tanto leerlo!! (cuanto me hubiera gustado podérselo recomendar a mi padre para platicar/comentarlo con el).

Brilliant! It's style of slowly teaching you about genetics as it guides you through the history of the discoveries of genetics helps understand the gene better.

There are so many characters along the way, each one toiling for years on some tiny area of expertise they couldn't even be sure was a good idea or worth collecting data on. Like Thomas Morgan, meticulously cross breeding fruit flies and recording results for five years just to see if he can learn anything. If that doesn't inspire you, I don't know what will.

And also, find someone who talks about you the way Siddhartha Mukherjee writes about the DNA double helix.

3.5 stars

From a book this long I expect a better explanation of how genes / genome actually works, rather than just the history and speculation on the future. There were a bunch of stretched comparisons where a picture would tell way more, at least for me.

I've never understood biology at the subcellular level and had hoped to remedy that. No luck. I did learn much from this book, just not what I had hoped: I still feel hopelessly lost around DNA. But that's OK, maybe my brain just doesn't work that way.

Siddhartha Mukherjee has a phenomenal way of writing about medicine / biology. This was truly a fantastic read

Fantastic. Did not think he could possibly top or compare The Emperor of All Maladies, but this was coherent, articulate and eminently understandable for such a complex topic over such a long period of history. Required reading and a must if you enjoyed Emperor.

The history of genetics in a dense, detailed yet fluidly told book interspersed with the author's personal family history of mental illness. The first part of the book is more engaging - probably because all the science is easier to understand - as we visit Darwin and his evolutionary theories and Mendel and his heredity experiments with pea plants. The middle part is rather science heavy, as there are less anecdotes but more techniques to explain. And here I am thankful for doing this in audiobook form. The last part focuses on the ethics and opens many questions about the future of genetics. As our scientific knowledge and skills will continue to improve, it's less a question of if a new form of eugenics will happen or not, but rather, when and how it will happen.

Amazing writing and an incredibly interesting field of study. Turns out that Bill Gates recommends great books :)

It's unfortunate that progress in genetic research is painstakingly slow. The medical, moral, and ethical challenges merit both the continued push to discover more and the regulations that hold the scientists back.

After reading Mukherjee's book, I firmly believe that genes will be the next “bytes” in our society. It's not a question of if - but when. It's made me question what role I want to have in this revolution...

LOVED this book! It's a great, chronological history of the science of genetics.