The Gene

20 hours very well spent

I hesitated for almost a year before plunging into this book as it looked rather intimidating. Don't hesitate - this is really worth listening to NOW. Mukherjee uses 'Gene' as the title, because the Gene is the central idea, but he points out that the Gene is to biology what the Atom is to Physics and the Bit or Byte to computer science or IT. Meaning that the book is really the history of biology, or more importantly of how we have come to understand our own selves at a molecular level, and actually got to the point where we can tinker with our own blue-print. I have this crazy image in my head of a grinning tin robot holding a shiny new spanner, lifting up the lid of her metal cranium and poking inside, meanwhile saying 'I have this idea that I have a screw loose, and I think I can probably fix it with this new spanner.' That is about the position of the human race at this point in time. The spanner is gene editing technology. Mukherjee explains very clearly the opportunities and risks, it's both scary and exciting.

I'll mention one other thing. It is very hard to understand how difficult it is to discover things. For example, Darwin almost had a nervous breakdown trying to understand how characteristics could be both accurately passed down generations and yet also create variation. How hereditary particles could behave like paints (which blend) and yet preserve distinct variations. In terms of logic, Heredity seems to behave like 'X' and 'not X' at the same time. Similarly scientists were all circling around DNA for ages before they finally landed on the double helix. Mukherjee has a genius for making it clear how hard it is to work things out for the first time.

One last thing. The book is full of fairly advanced science, but Mukherjee also uses examples from his own family (who have a history of Schizophrenia) and other families to add a personal and more accessible slant to the book. Readers of his previous magnum opus on Cancer will recognise this approach. For me it works very well to relate the science to actual human lives that are affected, for better or worse, by the dry stuff that happens in laboratories.


Narration. American so not really a true reflection of the Indian-born author, but very professional, competent, measured (he does a slightly angry voice only when this is appropriate).

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Fascinating, exhilarating thought provoking all at the same time

Very well researched, written and read - at times like a thriller, at times like a mystery and at times like a credible science journal. 20 hours very well spent!!

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Incredibly detailed, and yet easy to follow

This book is easily one of my favourites in the pop science genre. The author makes the complicated, painfully detailed subject matter of genetics sound easy and interesting. The personal anecdotes and case studies make this book much more than just an informative science piece- it’s moving, thought provoking, and highly enjoyable. I’m certain I will come back to it soon.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great listen

Gripping history of the science of genetics interwoven with a poignant personal history. Enjoyed it very much.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

May become compulsory

Would you consider the audio edition of The Gene to be better than the print version?

Cannot comment

What did you like best about this story?

The effort shown by the author to give as 'balanced' account as possible.

Have you listened to any of Dennis Boutsikaris’s other performances? How does this one compare?

I am not aware of listening to a performance by Dennis before - but this is truly outstanding.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

'Moved' is not the word I would use - did it make me think ?? - numerous times.

Any additional comments?

That someone would even consider doing a 'work' relating to this subject is amazing - and we should all thank Siddhartha for doing so. But to dos so with such an evenhanded approach is a compliment to his intelligence. Could we, IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE, see this become compulsory reading in our schools - I, for one, hope so.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Fascinating read/listen

This was my first audio book and as my headline states I found it to be fascinating. A really good mix of the science, the history and the ethics around genomics. I am definitely a layman.

My wife is doing a masters in Genomics and listened to a lot of this with me. She said the science was exactly what she had been studying in her first module and that she too found the history really interesting.

Genomics is a big thing in medicine right now and this book will help you understand why and what it might mean in the future.

Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Freaks become norms, and norms become extinct.

Monster by monster, evolution advanced”
― Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History

We are a code a language, participants in the same rules of life that all forms life of this earth take part in and we as a species are beginning to to decode it and understand the power within that knowledge.

This book is a historical and personal description of what we have learned to this point, it is also a warning of how we have used this ideas to promote political agendas and prejudices that have developed into some of the most horrible events in human history, it also shows that we are at the very edge of discoveries that will liberate us from some of the worst illnesses that have ruled our lives and our death.

This book is very accessible and so, so interesting it is a shame many will not read it out of fear it would be too technical or too complicated, the truth is it will open a world of ideas and give you a perspective that will enrich your life and your understanding of what is being developed and a way of understanding some of the implications of this developments.

I enjoyed reading this book, and learning more about life itself and how truly amazing it is, this is about one of the most important technologies of our day and it how it influences and touches our most basic needs from gestation to death.

9 of 14 people found this review helpful

Good overall primer for the topic

I enjoyed the overall tone and found the book highly unformative. Perhaps it was a little tautalogical in prose though certainly not in context. I used the hardback edition too for the plates and the notes and found that this would be essential for the chapters where you learn all information to understanding DNA structure, cutting and PCR. Using both the audio and the book recommended for busy readers with many books. Sone of the family history is useful to understand the author so I find this book to be very complete.

In a word - Brilliant!<br /><br />

This is science and literature at its best. Beautifully written in a way that explains the development of the complex concept genetics and its development, that is both enthralling, and understandable, I think for all of us.
I've read the Kindle version, listened to the Audible version, and I'm now thinking of getting a 'hard copy' for. the bookshelf.
Go for it.

Primer on genetics, not just history of Gene

Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “Gene: An Intimate History” is an engaging combination of the science of genetics, the history of its discovery and progression, and some thoughts on the future where we can design our own genes and the ethical and moral dilemmas this is likely to raise, of a scale even more than that raised by the practice of Eugenics in the early part of the last century, which culminated in the monstrosity of Nazism. There indeed is a lot of accessibly written science – on the probabilistic nature of genes, on the effects of environmental conditioning, and on the observation that mutations are a statistical phenomenon, not a pathological one.
But along the way, the book is full of tit-bits about the main historical players behind the key achievements and breakthroughs in the field, with animated stories of some of the misses and hits in their course.
Interesting characters and tableaux abound – there’s Francis Crick and James Watson, one a studious biologist and the other a happy-go-lucky ornithologist who later decided to study zoology and then biology. And their race with Linus Pauling to discover DNA – as Mukherjee tells it, they were terrified of the thought that one morning they would wake up to find news of Pauling’s discovery in the morning papers. Then there’s Rosalind Franklin, a rare woman in the then still male dominated field, who did a lot of the work which M/s Crick and Watson built upon and used. Ms. Franklin was the first person to photograph the DNA – but sadly never got the acclaim that came the others’ way.
Going further back, There’s Gregor Mendel, a failed teacher and pastor who had the tonnes of patience required to experiment and unravel the theory of heredity, and its basis in genes. Of course there is Darwin – and also his cousin, Francis Galton, a biologist in his own right, who was an early believer in the concept of eugenics.
Laid out sequentially, the book takes one through the state of thinking in the fields at various points in time, to the present, where we look ahead with some trepidation to what it holds – with gene editing, or fixing of “faulty” genes – already a reality, and availability of full scale designer genes surely only a matter of time. Positive possibilities abound – think about altering a gene to cure a disease. But so do the not so salubrious ones – can one change genes to make the offspring more white? Or black? Or to change sexual orientations?
These are serious thoughts which come towards the end of this engagingly written book.