Dear Dr. Mukerjee,

Thanks for the great update on what's going on in the genetics business. Just another reason for me to encourage my daughter to consider a career in biology or cellular biology or evolutionary biology. As we turn our attention to the little world under the microscope we see even more variety and complexity than we could have imagined....even 30 years ago. I couldn't agree with you more that I should be a little worried that scientists are plowing ahead with experiments genetically altering human embryos and accidentally creating unexpected mutations. While we learn more about genes influencing specific diseases these relationships are rarely one-to-one, have relationships contingent on the environment, and generally don't lend themselves to, ahem, cut-and-paste. I want to believe that gene therapy will yield big dividends for human health, reducing misery in the world, and promoting long useful lives. Genes, like leaves of grass, have a much longer evolutionary life than do humans. Bacteria, viruses also have been fighting the good fight for survival much, much longer than humans. And so I think fruitful to ask again, to what degree are we the masters of our fate, even when we monkey with the gene pool? I'll be staying up late nights to ponder that conundrum. ( )

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). ( )

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. ( )

Engaging and readable, neither dumbed-down nor densely academic. Very interesting to get an overview of developments since I left uni (and of everything I didn't learn there as well). ( )

Science writing for the general reader done as it should be done - detailed, accurate, and engaging. It's a big book, and the reading is necessarily slow, but worth the effort. ( )