The Song of the Cell
- Author Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrator Dennis Boutsikaris
- Publisher Random House
- Run Time 16 hours and 2 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Anatomy, Cellular biology (cytology), History of medicine, History of science, Medical research, Popular medicine and health, Popular science, Regenerative medicine: stem cells.
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
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, about the fundamental unit of life. 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.
In the late 1600s, a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek look down their hand-made microscopes. What they see introduces a radical concept that sweeps through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences, and altering both forever. It is the fact that complex living organisms are assemblages of tiny, self-contained, self-regulating units. Our organs, our physiology, our selves - hearts, blood, brains - are built from these compartments. Hooke christens them "cells".
The discovery of cells -and the reframing of the human body as a cellular ecosystem - announced the birth of a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulations of cells. A hip fracture, a cardiac arrest, Alzheimer's dementia, AIDS, pneumonia, lung cancer, kidney failure, arthritis, COVID pneumonia - all could be re-conceived as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies.
In The Song of the Cell, Mukherjee tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. He seduces readers with writing so vivid, lucid and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling. Told in six parts, laced with Mukherjee's own experience as a researcher, a doctor, and a prolific reader, The Song of the Cell is both panoramic and intimate - a masterpiece.
© Siddhartha Mukherjee 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
Critics Review
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Brilliant … medical magic … written with compassionate warmth and humour
Daily Telegraph -
Wonderfully ambitious… Cell biology is complex and as big a topic as life itself; I’m not sure a writer could cover it better
The Times -
If you are not already in awe of biology, The Song of the Cell might get you there. It is a masterclass
Guardian -
Vast, important … optimistic
Mail on Sunday -
Some of the writing in The Song of the Cell is so lovely that you can get caught up in its music
New York Times
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