2019 PEN E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award FinalistScience book of the year The
Guardian One of New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2018 One of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten
Books of 2018One of Kirkus's Best Books of 2018 One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018One of
Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 Extraordinary New York Times Book Review
Magisterial The Atlantic Engrossing Wired Leading contender as the most outstanding nonfiction
work of the year Minneapolis Star-Tribune Celebrated New York Times columnist and science
writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from
generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a
scientific question and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the
early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually people translated their old notions about
heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper
millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents to distant
ancestors to ethnic identities... But Zimmer writes Each of us carries an amalgam of
fragments of DNA stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own
ancestry traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may
sometimes be cause for worry but most of our DNA influences who we are our appearance our
height our penchants in inconceivably subtle ways. Heredity isn t just about genes that pass
from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies as a single cell gives rise to
trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors using a
word that once referred to kingdoms and estates but we inherit other things that matter as much
or more to our lives from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We
need a new definition of what heredity is and through Carl Zimmer s lucid exposition and
storytelling this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving historical and current
scientific research his own experience with his two daughters and the kind of original
reporting expected of one of the world s best science journalists Zimmer ultimately unpacks
urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies but also long-standing
presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.
