The emperor of all maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee

I’ve already introduced Siddhartha Mukherjee when I reviewed “The gene”. What I said about Oliver Sacks is true for Mukherjee as well: a great scientist with outstanding literary skills.

He studied biology - that’s why he wrote a book about genetics - and works as a haematologist and oncologist, hence this work about cancer. A great book about a terrible subject, some might say.

River out of Eden - Richard Dawkins

As I already mentioned when I reviewed Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “The gene”, we live in an increasingly science-driven society, and one can’t really understand much of it without some basic knowledge of biology.
In this book Richard Dawkins compares life to a river of genes, flowing through time using organisms (including humans) as temporary vessels. The title is obviously quoting a Biblical passage, and that’s not a coincidence.

The gene - Siddhartha Mukherjee

What a nice book is the fifth item on this recommendation list. See my home page for the previous entries.
In his masterpiece Siddhartha Mukherjee traces the history of genetics, from the Moravian monk Gregor Mendel’s experiments on pea crops to 21st century scientists’ human genome mapping. It is like a crash course in history of biology, minus all the complicated organic chemistry details, plus a bit of suspence, insights, drama and family history.