Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Tremendously entertaining, enjoyable romp through genetics
This is the book that I wish Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" was. Matt Ridley unfolds the human genome for us in a crisply written and precise "Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters." OK, I don't know what the Hades that means, but this guy is a good writer, a smart scientist, and a friendly teacher of what is a really cool, but intimidating, branch of learning.Ridley's got a little shtick, which he openly mocks himself, where his 23 chapters each represent one of the 23 human chromosomes. It's kind of an interesting little angle, you want to like this guy, anyway, so the shtick mostly works, although I don't really have a sense that each of our 23 chromosomes is a particular type of chromosome at the end of it. Genome is a lot of good science explained with a clear, well-constructed hand. In an excellent seven-page introduction, Ridley answered for me all sorts of questions that my scientifically-literate yet communication-challenged science friends have been unable to answer, to wit: "Imagine that the genome is a book. There are twenty-three chapters, called Chromosomes.
Each chapter contains several thousand stories, called Genes.
Each story is made up of paragraphs, called Exons, which are interrupted by advertisements called Introns.
Each paragraph is made up of words, called Codons.
Each word is written in letters called Bases." Very nicely done, brings it to an understandable level for the literate layperson, and establishes a very solid foundation from which he is able to unfold the rest of this story. He handles the basic science very well, and mostly shys away from the "Believe It or Not!" school of science reporting, though the occasional oddity does pop up. One thing I found fascinating is the existence of "chimeras." Which is one creature ( a human, a mouse, anything) that has two different genomes in it: "Think of them as the opposite of identical twins: two different genomes in one body, instead of two different bodies with the same genome." This means that you could be the single body of two different people that had accidentally fused in the womb. Really weird thought experiment, no? He places humans and our development in the context of our nearest genetic cousins - the chimpanzees and the gorillas and so forth. And elucidates a number of compare and contrast thoughts: "What it means is that the mating system of the species was changing. The promiscuity of the chimp, with its short sexual liaisons, and the harem polygamy of the gorilla, were being replaced with something much more monogamous: a declining ratio of sexual dimorphism is unambiguous evidence for that." Ridley's wordcraft is superior. Enjoy all the learning, implications, and human foibles he packs into this one sentence on language acquisition: "Thus, although no other primate can learn grammatical language at all - and we are indebted to many diligent, sometimes gullible and certainly wishful trainers of chimpanzees and gorillas for thoroughly exhausting all possibilities to the contrary - language is intimately connected with sound production and processing." It is really just masterful. Even more enjoyable if you read it in an English accent on account of Ridley's living there according to the dust jacket. In sum, if you are looking for an introduction to genetics, DNA, and our genome, and are the omnivore type of reader with a decent head on your shoulders, this book is for you. I enjoyed it tremendously and it's given me a very good grounding for my further reading into evolutionary psychology. Enjoy strongly!
Rating:  - My, how the "facts" change
This is one of those books you find yourself mentioning to your friends. The 23 very readable chapters, one for each chromosome, are a clever presentation of what's been learned (or being learned)about the human genome. If half of what Ridley recounts is true, we truly are living in exciting times, since much of what he talks about is quite new news. Criticisms: Ridley is not actually a scientist, but he sure likes to act like he is. All through the book, he makes numerous declarations about new discoveries, errors in previous "facts", and the current thinking about what the new discoveries really mean, but doesn't really say what the basis for these declarations are. Now, I'm sure that he can fully support every statement he makes in the book, but it's a bit annoying that so much in this book reads as if these are all Ridley's ideas. No doubt, some are. Most, we hope, must be the ideas and work of someone with real credentials. Yet there's lots of things written that aren't attributed to anyone with credentials. If there weren't so many instances where Ridley tosses out the previous "facts", it might not be such a big deal. But if you're bringing in a new set of facts, the least you can do is mention who it is who's behind the facts. In the end notes you'll notice part of what I'm getting at here: Ridley says (several times) that "The best book on such and such is XYZ". Now, I'm wondering what journalist is qualified to make that judgement. Ridley knows he's a good writer, and he tries hard to make you know it too, to the point of being intrusive and self-promoting. Like the "junk DNA" that apparently makes up a big chunk of our genes, imbedded in "Genone" is Ridley's screaming "Look at me! Look at me! I'm writing! Don't you wish you could write like me! ". Did anyone else detect a prissy, slightly snobbish tone in this book? How about what seems like unnecessary promotion of British scientists? I didn't realize that almost all the great findings in this field were by the Brits. For example, in describing Watson and Crick's DNA work, he says that most of the important discoveries were made by Crick (the British half of the pair). Now is this a fact, or just Ridley's opinion. This is a very interesting, worthwhile book to read. Even if half the stuff turns out to be not true (and should we be surprised, since for most of the "new facts" there's an upended "old fact", and these new facts may one day suffer the same undignified fate as the old facts which preceded them?) it's still an entertaining glimpse of what's going on in this field.
Rating: - Brings the Genome Alive in Story-Like Fashion
REVIEW: This book gives basic genetic lessons in 23 short chapters told in story-like format that are interesting and at times entertaining. For a number of years, I've wanted to understand the basics of the genome, but I didn't want to have to study a textbook. This book is the perfect solution. In explaining the genome, heridity, evolution and related issues, the author uses familiar examples, like cancer, alzheimer's disease, and mad cow disease, etc. (but the book isn't just about diseases). Ridley is expert at using analogies and at giving just enough detail so that the lay person understands his basic points yet appreciates much of the complexity of the genome and its operation. While you won't be able to run a genetics experiment after reading this book, you will have a much better appreciation of the effects that our knowledge of the genome will have on our future. Very highly recommended for those interested in the field.STRENGTHS: The book is not a text book. The chapters are relatively short and easy to read. The author is excellent at using analogy for increasing understanding of difficult/complex material. Writing style and depth of content perfectly match the target audience. WEAKNESSES: The book would have benefited greatly from some graphics (at least my version of the book didn't have them). Some readers may be put off by a reacurring sub-topic in the book that discusses philosophical and ethical issues of our exploration of the genome (however, I also found this discussion interesting). While there is minimal use of technical words, a glossary would also have been helpful too. WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK: Everyone that is not an expert in genetics and would like to understand the basics of the genome, heredity, evolution and related issues. Those who refuse to believe that our genes play a major role in who we are and how we behave (including personality) will either be converted or will probably dislike what this book has to say.
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