The Gene

An Intimate History

By: Siddhartha Mukherjee

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

*Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2016*

The Gene is the story of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in our history, from bestselling, prize-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee.

Spanning the globe and several centuries, The Gene is the story of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans, that governs our form and function.

The story of the gene begins in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia in 1856 where a monk stumbles on the idea of a ‘unit of heredity’. It intersects with Darwin’s theory of evolution, and collides with the horrors of Nazi eugenics in the 1940s. The gene transforms post-war biology. It reorganizes our understanding of sexuality, temperament, choice and free will. This is a story driven by human ingenuity and obsessive minds – from Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel to Francis Crick, James Watson and Rosalind Franklin, and the thousands of scientists still working to understand the code of codes.

This is an epic, moving history of a scientific idea coming to life, by the author of The Emperor of All Maladies. But woven through The Gene, like a red line, is also an intimate history – the story of Mukherjee’s own family and its recurring pattern of mental illness, reminding us that genetics is vitally relevant to everyday lives. These concerns reverberate even more urgently today as we learn to “read” and “write” the human genome – unleashing the potential to change the fates and identities of our children.

Majestic in its ambition, and unflinching in its honesty, The Gene gives us a definitive account of the fundamental unit of heredity – and a vision of both humanity’s past and future.

Critic reviews

With a marriage of architectural precision and luscious narrative, an eye for both the paradoxical detail and the unsettling irony, and a genius for locating the emotional truths buried in chemical abstractions, Mukherjee leaves you feeling as though you’ve just aced a college course for which you’d been afraid to register — and enjoyed every minute of it (Andrew Solomon)

[Siddhartha Mukherjee] is the perfect person to guide us through the past, present, and future of genome science… It is up to all of us—not just scientists, government officials, and people fortunate enough to lead foundations—to think hard about these new technologies and how they should and should not be used. Reading The Gene will get you the point where you can actively engage in that debate. (Bill Gates)

The Gene is prodigious, sweeping, and ultimately transcendent. If you’re interested in what it means to be human, today and in the tomorrows to come, you must read this book. (Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See)

Dramatic and precise... [A] thrilling and comprehensive account of what seems certain to be the most radical, controversial and, to borrow from the subtitle, intimate science of our time... He is a natural storyteller... A page-turner... Read this book and steel yourself for what comes next. (Bryan Appleyard)

The story […] has been told, piecemeal, in different ways, but never before with the scope and grandeur that Siddhartha Mukherjee brings to his new history, The Gene. He fully justifies the claim that it is “one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science.” … Definitive (James Gleick)

[The Gene is] destined to soar into the firmament of the year's must reads, to win accolades and well-deserved prizes, and to set a new standard for lyrical science writing.

The Gene is as engaging, powerful and elegant a piece of science writing as you are likely to read this year… Mukherjee has three rare talents. The first is a shining prose style quite unlike anything else in his field… A novelist’s command of narrative and tone. The third and most unusual talent is an eye for the lustre among the manifold drudgeries of research… It takes a skilful writer to turn all the personalities and patients, data and ideas into something that is dramatic without being melodramatic… The Gene succeeds as a compelling story... For this alone, Mukherjee deserves another part-time Pulitzer. (Oliver Moody)

Mukherjee is an assured, polished wordsmith… This is a big book, bursting with complex ideas… Well-written, accessible and entertaining account of one of the most important of all scientific revolutions, one that is destined to have a fundamental impact on the lives of generations to come. The Gene is an important guide to that future. (Robin McKie)

Mind blowing... and thorough.

This book just gave me a thoroughly hot air balloon level overview of the entire history of heredity and genetics, criss-crossed with personal stories, the stories of patients, of the scientists and the moral implications. I meep thinking to myself: what just happened!?

One of the best experiences I have had. It is 18h long so there are definitely times when a certain phrase annoyed me, or the narrator annoyed me but I still loved it so much. I’ll have to buy the paper copy as well.

A must read book for every member of our species

I remember that way back in 2003 i fell in love with physics when i read a brief history of time by Stephen hawking. It changed my perspective of what time, forces of nature and our universe. Similarly this book titled The Gene: an intimate history written by Siddhartha Mukherjee will change the way how you look at yourself, life and the reality of our existence itself by delving into the most important journey our species has ever taken: The journey to understand the foundation of life itself : DNA. This is a must read book for anyone who ponders the question of existence, life, disease and even fate.

Recommended for everyone

While at some points this book becomes very Technical and Scientific, it is a recommended listen to everyone.

GGeenneettiiccss. Unpacked

This is a truly remarkable volume where the author unpacks for the layperson the history of Genetics. Of equal importance, the current issues concerning genes and their manipulation, right up to the present day, are expounded and explained. I learned a great deal from this fine book.

Interesting subject, hard on audiobook

The subject is very interesting and the author was very good in intersecting the cientific advances with the sociological impact and reactions. It is also interesting to understand the relationship among researchers and their motivations. But the book is a little bit too technical for a layman and 2/3 of the book are filled with technical details. But the worse is dealing with this in an audiobook, when it is hard to back to check on something, take a little longer to read and reread a paragraph. I recommend the book, but not on audio. I might get a print copy to go back to some points that I want to understand better.