Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley Search Amazon for other books by or about Matt Ridley. Rating: Reviewed by: David Smillie

This is one of those books. The title made me leery. Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters Eeek! Then I read the introduction, in which Matt Ridley explains that he's going to pick one gene from each of the 23 pairs of chromosomes, and use those genes to tell the story of biology and human evolution. Double Eeek! With much trepidation, I opened the book.

And I was immediately captivated. This is a great book. Not, perhaps, as a work of science. It doesn't have the depth or rigour of a lot of science that's written "for scientists". But as a work of popularization, it's absolutely first-rate. Ridley is a huge fan of DNA, and that enthusiasm rubs off on virtually every chapter of the book. The idea of using different genes from each chromosome as "signposts" could easily have grated. But Ridley manages to keep things fresh, even though the pickings get a little lean as he approaches the smaller chromosomes (with fewer genes from which to choose) later in the book. (In fact, his final chapter is a bit of a cheat, as he writes about an imaginary gene ... but we'll let that slide.)

For a book that's so easy to read, Ridley covers an astonishing amount of ground. Selfish genes, sexual selection, sexual competition, suicide genes, nature versus nurture, genetic determinism, eugenics, the human genome project, the genetics of memory ... you get the idea. The book has the feel of journalism ... it's more "big picture" than niggling facts, but I found very few complaints with Ridley's research, and none at all with his style:

"This book's obsession with the condition of one species, the human species, says nothing about that species' importance. Human beings are of course unique. They have, perched between their ears, the most complicated biological machine on the planet. But complexity is not everything, and it is not the goal of evolution. Every species on the planet is unique. Uniqueness is a commodity in oversupply. None the less, I propose to try to probe this human uniqueness ... to uncover the causes of our idiosyncrasy as a species. Forgive my parochial concerns. The story of a briefly abundant hairless primate originating in Africa is but a footnote in the history of life, but in the history of the hairless primate it is central ... the remarkable truth is that we come from a long line of failures. We are apes, a group that almost went extinct fifteen million years ago in competition with the better-designed monkeys. We are primates, a group of mammals that almost went extinct forty-five million years ago in competition with the better-designed rodents. We are synapsid tetrapods, a group of reptiles that almost went extinct 200 million years ago in competition with the better-designed dinosaurs. We are descended from limbed fishes, which almost went extinct 360 million years ago in competition with the better-designed ray-finned fishes. We are chordates, a phylum that survived the Cambrian era 500 million years ago by the skin of its teeth in competition with the brilliantly-successful arthropods. Our ecological success came against humbling odds."

Ridley's book is a must-read for people who are curious about the human genome project, genetically modified foods or genetic engineering. In other words, anyone who is interested in the "brave new world" in which we find ourselves. The facts are presented clearly and cleverly, with some excellent analogies and a real zest for the information. The best term I can think of remains "enthusiasm". Ridley is fired up about his topic and that helps drive the book along. It's really an excellent place to start learning about genetics and the new biology, a book that will lead you on to Dawkins, Wilson, Pinker and other "heavier" authors. But that's not to slight Ridley in any way, because Genome is an excellent read. And in this era of human genome sequencing, it's a remarkably relevant one as well, that can explain the basics of biology (and more than just the basics) to a wide audience. As such, it's quite an accomplishment.