The Gene
An Intimate History
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $33.98
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dennis Boutsikaris
-
Written by:
-
Siddhartha Mukherjee
About this listen
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of The Emperor of All Maladies, a magnificent history of the gene and a response to the defining question of the future: What becomes of being human when we learn to "read" and "write" our own genetic information?
The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
Throughout the narrative, the story of Mukherjee's own family - with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness - cuts like a bright red line, reminding us of the many questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In superb prose and with an instinct for the dramatic scene, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation - from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Thomas Morgan to Crick, Watson, and Rosa Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary 21st-century innovators who mapped the human genome.
As The New Yorker said of The Emperor of All Maladies, "It's hard to think of many books for a general audience that have rendered any area of modern science and technology with such intelligence, accessibility, and compassion.... An extraordinary achievement."
A riveting, revelatory, and magisterial history of a scientific idea coming to life and an essential preparation for the moral complexity introduced by our ability to create or "write" the human genome, The Gene is a must-listen for everyone concerned about the definition and future of humanity. This is the most crucial science of our time, intimately explained by a master.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2016 Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D. All rights reserved. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.You may also enjoy...
-
The Song of the Cell
- An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
- Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene, a #1 New York Times bestseller, comes his most spectacular book yet, an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. Rich with Mukherjee’s revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer’s exploration of what it means to be human.
-
-
Another success
- By afsaneh on 2023-06-16
Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
A tough one to get through, but super worthy.
- By Dani on 2018-04-07
Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
-
The Laws of Medicine
- Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Santino Fontana
- Length: 1 hr and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brimming with fascinating historical details and modern medical wonders, this important audiobook is a fascinating glimpse into the struggles and "eureka!" moments that people outside of the medical profession rarely see. Written with Dr. Mukherjee's signature eloquence and passionate prose, The Laws of Medicine is a critical book not just for those in the medical profession but for everyone who is moved to better understand how their health and well-being are being treated.
-
-
Problems identified but few solutions
- By P. on 2023-01-24
Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
-
I Contain Multitudes
- The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
- Written by: Ed Yong
- Narrated by: Charlie Anson
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joining the ranks of popular science classics like The Botany of Desire and The Selfish Gene, a groundbreaking, wondrously informative, and vastly entertaining examination of the most significant revolution in biology since Darwin - a "microbe's-eye view" of the world that reveals a marvelous, radically reconceived picture of life on Earth.
-
-
Author’s infectious passion
- By Amazon Customer on 2023-07-12
Written by: Ed Yong
-
Something Deeply Hidden
- Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
- Written by: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.
-
-
In another world, this review is much better.
- By Brad Mills on 2019-11-26
Written by: Sean Carroll
-
An Elegant Defense
- The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives
- Written by: Matt Richtel
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A magnificently reported and soulfully crafted exploration of the human immune system - the key to health and wellness, life and death. An epic, first-of-its-kind audiobook, entwining leading-edge scientific discovery with the intimate stories of four individual lives, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist.
-
-
a masterpiece, phenomenally wrotton
- By Amazon Customer on 2021-10-11
Written by: Matt Richtel
-
The Song of the Cell
- An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
- Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene, a #1 New York Times bestseller, comes his most spectacular book yet, an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. Rich with Mukherjee’s revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer’s exploration of what it means to be human.
-
-
Another success
- By afsaneh on 2023-06-16
Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
A tough one to get through, but super worthy.
- By Dani on 2018-04-07
Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
-
The Laws of Medicine
- Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Santino Fontana
- Length: 1 hr and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brimming with fascinating historical details and modern medical wonders, this important audiobook is a fascinating glimpse into the struggles and "eureka!" moments that people outside of the medical profession rarely see. Written with Dr. Mukherjee's signature eloquence and passionate prose, The Laws of Medicine is a critical book not just for those in the medical profession but for everyone who is moved to better understand how their health and well-being are being treated.
-
-
Problems identified but few solutions
- By P. on 2023-01-24
Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
-
I Contain Multitudes
- The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
- Written by: Ed Yong
- Narrated by: Charlie Anson
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Joining the ranks of popular science classics like The Botany of Desire and The Selfish Gene, a groundbreaking, wondrously informative, and vastly entertaining examination of the most significant revolution in biology since Darwin - a "microbe's-eye view" of the world that reveals a marvelous, radically reconceived picture of life on Earth.
-
-
Author’s infectious passion
- By Amazon Customer on 2023-07-12
Written by: Ed Yong
-
Something Deeply Hidden
- Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
- Written by: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.
-
-
In another world, this review is much better.
- By Brad Mills on 2019-11-26
Written by: Sean Carroll
-
An Elegant Defense
- The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives
- Written by: Matt Richtel
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A magnificently reported and soulfully crafted exploration of the human immune system - the key to health and wellness, life and death. An epic, first-of-its-kind audiobook, entwining leading-edge scientific discovery with the intimate stories of four individual lives, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist.
-
-
a masterpiece, phenomenally wrotton
- By Amazon Customer on 2021-10-11
Written by: Matt Richtel
-
Our Mathematical Universe
- My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
- Written by: Max Tegmark
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy, and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and groundbreaking science, he not only helps us grasp his often mind-boggling theories, but he also shares with us some of the often surprising triumphs and disappointments that have shaped his life as a scientist.
-
-
A deeply engaging look at our universe(s).
- By Allan on 2018-07-01
Written by: Max Tegmark
-
Human Compatible
- Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
- Written by: Stuart Russell
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable. In this groundbreaking audiobook, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines.
Written by: Stuart Russell
-
Immune
- A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive
- Written by: Philipp Dettmer
- Narrated by: Steve Taylor
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You wake up and feel a tickle in your throat. Your head hurts. You’re mildly annoyed as you get the kids ready for school and dress for work yourself. Meanwhile, an epic war is being fought, just below your skin. Millions are fighting and dying for you to be able to complain as you head out the door. So what, exactly, is your immune system? In Immune, Philipp Dettmer, the brains behind the most popular science channel on YouTube, takes listeners on a journey through the fortress of the human body and its defenses.
-
-
truly exceeded my expectations.
- By Siavash Mehrabi on 2024-06-07
Written by: Philipp Dettmer
-
Liar's Poker
- Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street
- Written by: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1986, before Michael Lewis became the best-selling author of The Big Short, Moneyball, and Flash Boys, he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to New York- and London-based bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years - a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business.
-
-
Great Story
- By Geoff on 2024-08-11
Written by: Michael Lewis
-
Civilization
- The West and the Rest
- Written by: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Niall Ferguson
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over the world, an astonishing proportion of people now work for Western-style companies, study at Western-style universities, vote for Western-style governments, take Western medicines, wear Western clothes, and even work Western hours. Yet six hundred years ago the petty kingdoms of Western Europe seemed unlikely to achieve much more than perpetual internecine warfare. It was Ming China or Ottoman Turkey that had the look of world civilizations.
-
-
Too big to succeed...
- By Count Erklock on 2019-12-27
Written by: Niall Ferguson
-
G-Man (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
- Written by: Beverly Gage
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 36 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A major new biography of J Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today's conservative political landscape.
-
-
An epic tale of an American icon
- By David Zulkoskey on 2024-09-14
Written by: Beverly Gage
What the critics say
What listeners say about The Gene
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- William R. Weatherall
- 2022-07-01
Satisfying
At the end of it, you will feel like you got a very well guided tour of the history of genetic research. It’s incredible that he made this book.
Narrator is excellent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Aella
- 2024-09-06
Easy to understand complex ideas.
It was such an easy listen, finished it in only couple days. The history of our understanding of the gene is indeed packed with information, however the author is able to draw you in to this complex world - and the hours of listen makes you want to learn more about this field.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Damon Chouinard
- 2018-01-27
Brilliant
Loved the weaving of story, history, science and philosophy, I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to get a grasp of the field.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2021-08-07
I'm obessed with this book
I was self diagnosed with a propensity to obsess with books and The Gene reinforced this ideas like artful texts often do.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2023-02-28
Thorough but accessible
In the best possible way it's like auditing a university biology course. The professor is amazing, the topics or incredibly interesting, the pace is measured so not to be overwhelming, and there's never any homework.
I very rarely read non-fiction but I'm very glad I picked this one up!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Richard Malthaner
- 2019-01-19
Thoracik Rick
compelling, engaging, and thought-provoking! a must-read for anyone hoping for the future. excellent narration. I truly enjoyed it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Carolyn
- 2020-07-29
Superb read
This book is beautiful. It poetically describes the history of genetic discovery through the lives of scientists with relevance to modern people and the author’s own family as an example. Insightful enjoyable read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Galadriel
- 2021-06-23
Another masterpiece by Dr. Mukherjee
Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee summarizes the history, major milestones, and contemporary topics in the field of genetic research. In particular, he explains the history that surrounded the development of genetic research. He also explores the key players that have driven advances in the field. In addition, he elucidates key insights about the individual, social, and cultural implications of each stage of research in the field. Finally, he discusses the future of genetic research and their implications for humanity. The books is beautifully written. Dr. Mukherjee has produced another must read masterpiece for all learners in the field of scientific research.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Erin Tigchelaar
- 2021-11-03
Excellent way of getting through a dense book
This didn't have as much of an emotional impact on me as "The Emperor of All Maladies", and I felt it lagged or circled in spots, but it is an incredible synthesis of the history of genetics and the writing is, as always with Mukherjee, accessible and yet magisterial -- even with the occasional cheering moment of Dad humour (the puns like "give peas a chance"; the swing back to prioritizing genetic nature over environmental nurture described as "the return of the native"; and numerous plays on genes/jeans like "the cloth from which genes were cut"). Dennis Boutsikaris does a beautiful job of tackling the passages describing complex biological processes and his reading gives a warmth to the whole narrative. Even though I own the hardcover, I ordered the Audible copy to finally get through this book after listening to the sample of Boutsikaris. As in the author's book on cancer, the parts of the story I found most memorable were the personal stories of those suffering from heritable disorders, including Mukherjee's own family members. Highly recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jordan Goldthorp
- 2024-03-30
Wonderful storytelling
Mukherjee is a spectacularly well-researched professional and masterful storyteller. He weaves medical history into a compelling narrative that is impossible to put down.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!