The Gene

An Intimate History

By: Siddhartha Mukherjee

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of The Emperor of All Maladies, a magnificent history of the gene and a response to the defining question of the future: What becomes of being human when we learn to "read" and "write" our own genetic information?

2017 Audie Award Finalist for Non-Fiction

The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.

Throughout the narrative, the story of Mukherjee's own family - with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness - cuts like a bright red line, reminding us of the many questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In superb prose and with an instinct for the dramatic scene, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation - from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Thomas Morgan to Crick, Watson, and Rosa Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary 21st-century innovators who mapped the human genome.

As The New Yorker said of The Emperor of All Maladies, "It's hard to think of many books for a general audience that have rendered any area of modern science and technology with such intelligence, accessibility, and compassion.... An extraordinary achievement."

A riveting, revelatory, and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life and an essential preparation for the moral complexity introduced by our ability to create or "write" the human genome, The Gene is a must-listen for everyone concerned about the definition and future of humanity. This is the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2016 Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D. All rights reserved. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Narrator Dennis Boutsikaris captures the passion that fueled the extensive research involved and makes Mukherjee's sharing of his family's medical history more personable and important. With a reflective tone that is never pretentious or dull, a thorough profile of the gene is formally presented." ( AudioFile)

Splendid, but you also need the print.

Any additional comments?

This is a splendid book, superbly read--better than his excellent history of cancer--with only one reservation. That is: it is too compact to be absorbed in audio only. I started off without text and changed my mind about a third of the way in. I absorbed much more once I downloaded the Kindle although it is rich enough---and good enough--that it would easily reward a second read/listen. Highest marks for the audio but also get the Kindle (or paper).

Recommended reading !!!

Grrat review of the history of the discovery of hereditary traits, DNA, genes, the moral implications of the past, present and future. Loved it.

superb

long.. wonderful and beautifully read. little did I know how little I knew.
Allan Pont md

fascinating detail and information

well worth the read. Really makes you think and wonder about the future. highly recommended

More descriptive than prescriptive

80-90% of the book is a detailed historical review of all the theoretical revelations, experiments and building blocks that have lead us to where we are today; with the ability to alter genes. I wish more time was spent discussing and analyzing the implications of where we are today, providing some normative and practical boundaries of how we might move forward.

Step by step guided through the modern biology

Nice review of the history of modern biology, even knowing most of the facts told in this book it's organization and narrative is exceptional.

Packed with information!

Dense with interesting information. The conclusions and closing thoughts give us, as a species, much to think about.

Good mix of technical and laymans information

Murkagee does a great job blending a personal story with the history of genetic evolution and discovery. The latter half gets more technical and interestingly dives into moral arguments over the limits of what we can or should do with genetic experimentation. Fantastic performance.

Why we are so much different yet so much alike

This book was wonderful and should be on everyone's MUST read list. Genetics are the reason we have homosexuals and heterosexuals, obese, and many syndromes, cancers, and diseases. Like everything else is life, there is the good, bad and ugly.

Outstanding

One of those gems that makes complicated concepts accessible to the interested ordinary person. At the same time, it is not for the ignorant.