Siddhartha Mukherjee's "The Gene: An Intimate Exploration of Human Genetics"

Surya: The author describes the subject to the layman as though he has been working on a novel with men of science as protagonists , and of his personal story about insanity plaguing his family . Awesome read , loved it.

India on Sep 20, 2023

Siddhartha: As is Mukherjee’s writing style, this book is very well-written with history coming together as a story. Marvellous!

India on Sep 02, 2023

arun p.: this book tells about what we know about genes and consequently how our body is created , maintained and repaired. from this book i learned that that we know like 5% to 20% ( anywhere between) the functions of genes. there is a lot of interesting facts and how we use it to prevent or improve our future generation.
Did you know there is a gene in our body for gay behaviour, depending upon your view we can either say gay gene is a inborn quality and hence legitimate or you can say it is a genetic defect and needs to be eliminated. this book just mentions the fact without taking any stand.

you learn a lot about genes in an interesting non boring way, no need to have any medical/science background to understand it

India on Aug 31, 2023

Jayachandran Thampi: Like the Author, academic in flow, yet well intended and informative. Not for casual reading.

India on Aug 29, 2023

Anantha Narayan: The context for the “intimate” part of the title is the incidence of bipolarity and schizophrenia in the male members of Mukherjee’s family — two of his uncles and a cousin were diagnosed with the disease - which would be a constant threat hovering over the family. And this sets the tone for Mukherjee’s fascinating and detailed exploration into the subject of genes.

He divides the book into six parts, starting from 1865 until the present day, covering the history of genetics ranging from Mendel’s first experiments with peas to genome mapping. He combines significant academic rigour with writing flair while covering the 160-year journey that shaped human understanding of genetics. While parts of the book make heavy reading, Mukherjee keeps most of it interesting and sometimes even manages to convert potentially academic and mundane topics into racy narratives. The section on the race to discover the DNA structure by multiple scientists is one example. Or the race to map the human genome between a private company, Celera and the Human Genome Project. The Book of Man chapter, somewhere in the middle of the book, is particularly interesting with several factoids...

India on Jun 08, 2023

F. Moyer: The author of this book, Siddhartha Mukherjee, is also of the author of “The Emperor of All Maladies” (for which he which won a Pulitzer Prize). It was the excellence of that book that prompted me to get this book.

The first half of the book is indeed a history of mankind’s increasing knowledge and understanding of genes. We initially are told about some of the earliest conjectures regarding life and heredity. They could only be conjectures because there was no ability to see what biological mechanism enabled the passing of physical characteristics on to future generations. But Darwin’s observations and Mendel’s experiments eventually become the impetus for others to theorize and experiment. Still, our ability to better understand was highly dependent upon having the more sophisticated lab equipment capable of showing that which is almost infinitesimally small. But slowly and surely, man’s knowledge and understanding of life and heredity increased. And that history was a very effective way to slowly introduce these gene concepts to the reader as well. (“The Emperor of All Maladies” used this same historical perspective to help the reader learn about...

United States on Feb 28, 2023

Ashutosh S. Jogalekar: Genetics is humanity and life writ large, and this book on the gene by physician and writer Siddhartha Mukherjee paints on a canvas as large as life itself. It deals with both the history of genetics and its applications in health and disease. It shows us that studying the gene not only holds the potential to transform the treatment of human disease and to feed the world’s burgeoning population, but promises to provide a window into life’s deepest secrets and into our very identity as human beings.

The volume benefits from Mukherjee’s elegant literary style, novelist’s eye for character sketches and expansive feel for human history. While there is ample explanation of the science, the focus is really on the brilliant human beings who made it all possible. The author’s own troubling family history of mental illness serves as a backdrop and keeps on rearing its head like a looming, unresolved question. The story begins with a trip to an asylum to see his troubled cousin; two of his uncles have also suffered from various "unravelings of the mind". This burden of personal inheritance sets the stage for many of the questions about nature, nurture and destiny asked in...

United States on May 18, 2016