The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

by Siddhartha Mukherjee Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

From the author of Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies, this book works to understand what it means to be human through one of our most basic and compelling components: the cell. Part scientific history, part reflection from author Siddhartha Mukherjee told through rich language, this revelatory work is not to be missed.

Winner of the 2023 PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences and the 2023 Chautauqua Prize!

Named a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by The Economist, Oprah Daily, BookPage, Book Riot, the New York Public Library, and more!

In The Song of the Cell, the extraordinary author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Emperor of All Maladies and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Gene “blends cutting-edge research, impeccable scholarship, intrepid reporting, and gorgeous prose into an encyclopedic study that reads like a literary page-turner” (Oprah Daily).

Mukherjee begins this magnificent story in the late 1600s, when a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek looked down their handmade microscopes. What they saw introduced a radical concept that swept through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences, and altering both forever. It was 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 christened 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 reconceived as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies.

Filled with writing so vivid, lucid, and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling, The Song of the Cell tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. Told in six parts, and 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 on what it means to be human.

“In an account both lyrical and capacious, Mukherjee takes us through an evolution of human understanding: from the seventeenth-century discovery that humans are made up of cells to our cutting-edge technologies for manipulating and deploying cells for therapeutic purposes” (The New Yorker).

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for Song of the Cell

“This expansive, immersive book posits a new way forward in medicine thanks to the cell: new ways of treating patients, new medicines to create, new ways of healing, and new ways of understanding ourselves.” —Jaime Rochelle Herndon, Columbia Magazine

“In an account that’s both lyrical and capacious, Mukherjee takes us through an evolution of human understanding: from the seventeenth-century discovery that humans are made up of cells to our cutting-edge technologies for manipulating and deploying cells for therapeutic purposes.” —The New Yorker

"Erudite, panoramic... Mukherjee is an elegant stylist... [and] an assured and genial guide." —Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“If you are not already in awe of biology, The Song of the Cell might get you there. It is a masterclass.” —Suzanne O’Sullivan, The Guardian

“Audacious...mesmerizing...reliably engaging... Mukherjee enthusiastically instructs and... delights—all the while hustling us across a preposterously vast and intricate landscape.” —David A Shaywitz, The Wall Street Journal

“Mukherjee is a passionate, expert guide... He weaves together charming histories of scientists, his own, sometimes painful, memories of patients and friends lost to illness, and the complex science of what makes cells tick.” —Hannah Kuchler, The Financial Times

“For anyone who wants to understand the building blocks of their own bodies—which everyone surely should—this is an informative and entertaining introduction.” —The Economist

“Mukherjee has found an especially roomy subject for his roving intelligence. . . . I was repeatedly dazzled by [Mukherjee’s] pointillist scenes, the enthusiasm of his explanations, the immediacy of his metaphors.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

“Mukherjee is such an engaging writer, alert to nanoscopic beauty and the potential deceptions of metaphor. . . . [The Song of the Cell is] written with compassionate warmth and humor, and the personal glimpses into an ordinary scientific life and the dedication that goes with it.” —Steven Poole, The Telegraph

“The Song of the Cell blends cutting-edge research, impeccable scholarship, intrepid reporting, and gorgeous prose into an encyclopedic study that reads like a literary page-turner.” —Oprah Daily

AudioFile Magazine

"This is the second of Mukherjee’s audiobooks that Dennis Boutsikaris has narrated, after 2017’s THE GENE. In this expansive history of the researchers who unlocked the mysteries of the cell, Boutsikaris demonstrates again the importance of an experienced narrator in shaping a complex narrative. Using many of his skills as a narrator of bestselling thrillers, Boutsikaris shades a syllable here, adds a degree of emphasis there, heightening and bringing dramatic tension to a history that is already skillfully told and highly accessible but, at times, unavoidably dense. This is a narrative to digest slowly, step by step. The chapters are conveniently brief, and it’s no effort to listen to such an adept performer a second, even a third, time."

NOVEMBER 2022 - AudioFile

This is the second of Mukherjee’s audiobooks that Dennis Boutsikaris has narrated, after 2017’s THE GENE. In this expansive history of the researchers who unlocked the mysteries of the cell, Boutsikaris demonstrates again the importance of an experienced narrator in shaping a complex narrative. Using many of his skills as a narrator of bestselling thrillers, Boutsikaris shades a syllable here, adds a degree of emphasis there, heightening and bringing dramatic tension to a history that is already skillfully told and highly accessible but, at times, unavoidably dense. This is a narrative to digest slowly, step by step. The chapters are conveniently brief, and it’s no effort to listen to such an adept performer a second, even a third, time. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2022-06-25
A luminous journey into cellular biology.

Mukherjee, a physician, professor of medicine, and Pulitzer Prize–winning author (The Emperor of All Maladies), has a knack for explaining difficult ideas in terms that are both straightforward and interesting. In his latest, he punctuates his scientific explanations with touching, illustrative stories of people coping with cell-based illnesses, tracking how the knowledge gleaned from those cases contributed to further scientific advancement. In the early chapters, the author traces the discovery of cells as the building blocks of animal and plant life, with the invention of the microscope making analysis possible. With this development, researchers could better understand the roles of cells in human physiology, including the illnesses that rogue cells could cause. In the middle section, Mukherjee investigates how scientists then moved on to study the processes through which cells become specialized by function and how some turn cancerous. The identification of the phases of cell division and the discovery of DNA were crucial breakthroughs, opening the way for a new generation of treatments. Mukherjee occasionally digresses from the historical story to provide vivid portraits of key researchers, with recollections about his own work. The final section of the book deals with emerging areas of research such as cell manipulation and gene editing as well as new technologies like transplantation. It’s all unquestionably exciting, but the author is careful to acknowledge the knotty ethical considerations. Treating embryos for cellular abnormalities makes medical sense, but the idea of altered human beings has worrying implications. Mukherjee also emphasizes that there is still a great deal we do not know about cells, especially the interactions between types. Understanding the mechanics is one thing, he notes; hearing “the song of the cell” is something else. This poignant idea serves as a suitable coda for a fascinating story related with clarity and common sense.

Another outstanding addition to the author’s oeuvre, which we hope will continue to grow for years to come.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178917534
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/25/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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