The Violinists Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code by Sam Kean

The Violinists Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code Reviews

• 
  Lydia Presley

  I'm going to be honest and tell you the entire reason I picked up The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean is not because I'm interested in biology or DNA or anything to do with science really - it's because the name Paganini drew me in.
  
  I've never been the type of girl to understand science. The closest I came was a low C in Biology 14 years ago when I attended the University of Wyoming. Ever since then I've operated under the assumption that magic sparkles course through my veins, that storks bring babies to deserving parents, and that my father gave me his caterpillar eyebrows as a way to torture me in my later years of life. Sound silly? Of course it does - that's because when I see science explained it looks as strange to me as reading a difficult piece of piano sheet music might to you (I say might here because I'm operating under the assumption that you don't play Rachmaninoff on a daily basis.)
  
  In spite of all these misgivings, the name of Paganini, the famous violinists who - folk lore states - sold his soul to the devil for his ability to play drew me in to this book. Random fact: Franz Liszt (also rumored to be demonic in places) studied Paganini's skill on the violin and translated it to the piano. He also was the first to play music memorized on the stage for a concert. I blame him for my many breakdowns.
  
  Anyway!
  
  So Paganini was the bait, but what hooked me about this book was just how accessible the science was. Seriously, it blew me away. In between serious chunks of letters and strands and things I know nothing about were anecdotal stories and historic lessons about names and things I had never known about. It opened up a whole new world to me and in the process, I like to think, I learned a little something more then I expected to.
  
  Fully enjoyable, well-researched and surprisingly fun - this book gave me really strange DNA dreams and made me feel a little bit like a smart person ... for a short while.
• 
  Sean Gibson

  If Sam Kean had a bandwagon, I’d be on it. If he were stock, I’d buy him. If he were ice cream, I’d shove him into a waffle cone and…okay, well, now things are just getting weird. I’ve
  waxed poetic about my love of Kean before, and this is another delightful Kean production—though perhaps not quite as wonderful as others (particularly Caesar's Last Breath, which I think is his best work to date).
  
  Generally speaking, Kean’s books link a string of enlightening and often entertaining anecdotes together under a common theme, a formula The Violinist’s Thumb continues. Here, however, the anecdotes feel a bit less tightly connected. It’s more like a bunch of three-year-olds playing Pin-the-Tail on the Donkey at a birthday party. Like the sight of drunken midgets blindly wobbling toward a wall and trying to Velcro a superfluous appendage to a mule’s ass, it’s highly entertaining, and some of it hits the mark perfectly. At other times, however, the tail ends up on the nose, or maybe, in the case of the little funny kid who can’t pronounce R’s and always forgets which end of the spoon to hold, attached to the back of grandma’s homemade sweater.
  
  Still, it’s well worth a read, particularly for Kean’s nuanced discussion of the controversial implications of genetics research on race, sexuality, and other hot-button topics. His deft handling of measuring the potential benefits of such research against the need to be cautious in how—and how quickly—we interpret such results is a masterclass in compassionate rationalism and makes a compelling case for Kean to be appointed Secretary of Science Stuff.
  
  (Wait, that’s not a thing? Is it just because our current president thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax, or is it just normally not a thing? It’s normally not a thing? Well, that’s stupid. When I’m president, it will be a thing. And I will appoint Sam Kean as the Secretary of Science Stuff. Also, I will reverse the current administration’s stance that science, like pro-gay cakes and facts, are only for snowflake libtards, and I will insist that we actually use it as a basis for things like, I don’t know, environmental policy. Okay, I’m off the soapbox.)
  
  Feel free to join me on the bandwagon, folks. There’s plenty of room.
• 
  Brenda

  What I learned from reading Sam Kean’s The Violinist’s Thumb and Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code (Little, Brown and Company, 2012):
  
  I should never eat polar bear liver—unless I want my skin to peel off from foot to head.
  
  My cats’ presence soothes me because the Toxoplasma gondii parasites they carry manufacture dopamine, which has a feel-good effect on the human brain.
  
  Whales and dolphins have hair (what Kean calls “a comb-over”).
  
  A Russian scientist (Il’ya Ivanovich Ivanov) recruited women to copulate with an orangutan named Tarzan. The scientist hoped to create a “humanzee.”
  
  Doctors enjoy diagnosing fictional characters: “Ebenezer Scrooge with OCD, Sherlock Holmes with autism, and Darth Vader with borderline personality disorder” (271).
  
  Fruit fly genes are cleverly and creatively named.
  
  Examples include: “groucho, smurf, fear of intimacy, lost in space, smellblind, faint sausage, tribble ([after] the multiplying fuzzballs on Star Trek), and tiggywinkle (after Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, a character from Beatrix Potter). The armadillo gene, when mutated, gives fruit flies a plated exoskeleton. The turnip gene makes flies stupid. Tudor leaves males (as with Henry VIII) childless. Cleopatra can kill flies when it interacts with another gene, asp. Cheap date leaves flies exceptionally tipsy after a sip of alcohol. Fruit fly sex especially seems to inspire clever names. Ken and Barbie mutants have no genetalia. Male coitus interruptus mutants spend just ten minutes having sex (the norm is twenty), while stuck mutants cannot physically disengage after coitus. As for females, dissatistfaction mutants never have sex at all—they spend all their energy shooing suitors away by snapping their wings. And thankfully, this whimsy with names has inspired the occasional zinger in other areas of genetics. A gene that gives mammals extra nipples earned the name scaramanga, after the James Bond villain with too many. A gene that removes blood cells from circulation in fish became the tasteful vlad tepes, after Vlad the Impaler, the historical inspiration for Dracula. The backronym for the ‘POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic’ gene in mice—pokemon—nearly provoked a lawsuit, since the pokemon gene (now known, sigh, as zbtb7) contributes to the spread of cancer, and the lawyers for the Pokémon media empire didn’t want their cute little pocket monsters confused with tumors.” (50-51)
  
  I quote extensively here to demonstrate the humor that might not be expected in a book on scientific history. When I taught at an engineering university, students frequently informed me that engineers weren’t supposed to be “creative.” Kean certainly refutes that belief so far as genetic engineers and researchers are concerned.
  
  After reading a number of other popular science/psychology books this summer, I found myself appreciating Kean’s organization. The content of each chapter seemed necessary—and I appreciated the coherence of his arrangement of anecdotes. I only occasionally had trouble following passages (the one on genetic algorithms, for example). Usually, I felt very focused—and never thought, “Oh, no, it’s another random case study,” a common enough reaction when I’m wending my way through best selling works of nonfiction. I recommend this book to my creative writing peers—both poets and fiction writers as I think they will find Kean’s approach to be both informative and inspirational.
  
• 
  David Rubenstein

  This is a very good, and entertaining survey of the history of genetics. I learned a great deal about DNA, how it works, and how scientists are trying to unravel its secrets.
  
  Every chapter contains some fascinating facts, histories, and insights. For example, Kean makes analogies between music, linguistics, and the structure of DNA. The frequency of various notes in classical music follows a power law. The frequency of words in literature also follows a power law. Note: Kean does not mention the term "power law", but he describes it in other words. He shows that at some level, DNA codes also follow a power law. He shows how palindromes do arise in DNA occasionally, and how they have affected X and Y chromosomes.
  
  Kean explains how various genetics researchers made discoveries, and influenced--or failed to influence--each other. Kean has a remarkable ability for bringing human interest stories to life. For example, he tells the story of Barbara McClintock, whose incredible observational skills with a microscope enabled her to discover "jumping genes" in 1951. Scientists dismissed her discovery, because she dared to question the stationary-gene dogma. Her reputation suffered badly. Decades later, as genetics progressed, she was vindicated and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983.
  
  I have two misgiving about this book. First, Kean frequently uses the word "theory" in the popular sense, rather than in the scientific sense. He should really have used the word "hypothesis", which is much more appropriate for a new idea that is still unproven. Second, Kean's writing is peppered with silly attempts at humor. He uses expressions like "a bitter butter battle broke out", "Heck", and "... we also needed us some brains." Such attempts at humor somehow seemed out of place, and put me off.
  
  Nevertheless, I recommend this book to anybody who would like to get a fascinating overview of genetics and its history.
• 
  aPriL does feral sometimes

  'The Violinist's Thumb' is a perfect read for girding up one's loins for holiday dinners where lots of family members plan to attend. Not only are the stories the author relates of the foibles and craziness of world-famous scientists who were involved in knowledge about DNA give one preparation for facing down your more ordinary intolerable relatives, the chapters which actually explain DNA may provide insight on why you can't stand some blood relations. Body smell which repels you might be due to MHC chemistry. Those siblings you have called 'Neanderthal' since you were teens might actually be one.
  
  Sam Kean provides ample evidence humans, and even scientists, are genetically amazing in how we duplicate, develop and express our DNA and connected processes.
  
  However, our faith in civilization may be misplaced. Kean makes it obvious, particularly from the way some of these scientists behave, that whether we are smart or stupid, civilization, affection and manners are abstract concepts. The famous 'scientific method' might trigger more personal animus in action than is usually acknowledged. It looks to me like The Method is behind many of the murderous feuds and competition! The personal stories of the scientists as told by Kean, which occasionally led to their discoveries, or led, eventually, to the acceptance of their discoveries, are sometimes pathetic, sometimes terrible, sometimes hilarious.
  
  As amazing discoveries about DNA are being revealed, some only in the last 20 years, how our biology works at the molecular level is fantastic. We ordinary mortals read in Kean’s book what these scientist geniuses are sussing out through their pure intelligence, luck and personal cussedness. Knowing these people put pants on one leg at a time (if they remembered to dress), seeing how the sausage is made, so-to-speak, might deflate our awe to a degree. But scientists are trying to understand the microscopic functions they are able to measure, quantify and prove. It was never more true, as Kean shows, scientists are using logical provable observations and creative insights, building on the work of others, often in the face of withering contempt from their peers. These tough guys can publish their guesses, explorations and conclusions in the face of public scorn, and sometimes public humiliation (twitter storms are minor breezes compared to hatreds between scientists).
  
  I recommend this book as an amusing and illuminating general science read. I watched Youtube videos to help me out with the chapters that describe very detailed, multi-step processes.
• 
  Max

  In Kean’s follow up to The Disappearing Spoon he keeps the same breezy form but switches his subject from chemistry to genetics. While we get more science history and anecdotal stories than pure science, we still learn much about how our genome works. Kean writes for the general reader. Using his tongue in cheek style, he delivers short vignettes of scientists and famous people with genetic peculiarities.
  
  The book begins with Darwin and Mendel and follows their ideas up through double helix discoverers Watson and Crick. I had read about these men’s accomplishments but little of what had happened in between. So I found particularly interesting descriptions of the scientists whose incremental advances set the stage for the discovery of DNA’s structure and function.
  
  Much of the book is tangential. For example we learn how DNA protects polar bears from overdosing on vitamin A from their diet of vitamin A rich seal meat. The vitamin A is stored in their liver. Kean gives us an account of arctic explorers who nearly died eating it. Even further afield he highlights the protozoan parasite Toxo which makes cysts in people’s brains. It can influence their emotions and even induce a love of cats. He tells us about an infected couple who took in hundreds of cats.
  
  Kean also digs into the seedier side of genetics. He brings up Ilya Ianovich Ivanov who convinced the Bolshevik regime in Russia that he could create humanzees. Perhaps Stalin envisioned slave humanzee armies. Fortunately his grisly experiments failed. We learn how DNA allows creatures like ligers and zonkeys but not humanzees. However most of us carry some Neanderthal DNA.
  
  There is much less diversity in the human genome than in most other species. Kean attributes this to population bottlenecks many thousands of years ago when our numbers were greatly reduced and our survival as a species was tenuous. Small populations lead understandably to more inbreeding and genetic similarity but also to faster evolution. It is much easier for a new trait to sweep through a small population.
  
  Genetics is a factor in many special abilities and talents. Regarding intelligence not much seems certain. There are too many forces at play. Kean highlights how genetic based physical oddities did contribute to two great musicians. Rachmaninoff because of his huge hands wrote music only he could play with ease. The great nineteenth century violinist Paganini had hands uniquely flexible and strong due to a genetic condition that affected the way his body made collagen.
  
  Kean describes the competition of the 1990’s to sequence the human genome. The amazing speed with which this was accomplished was due to brute force methods that leave us with a lot of data we are just beginning to understand. Adding to the complexity of the genome is epigenetics, the ramping up or down of gene expression through cellular princesses driven largely by non-coding DNA. Epigenetic factors influenced by the environment may even in some circumstances affect offspring. Lastly Kean looks at the future; DNA modification can have huge benefits but may just open Pandora’s Box.
  
• 
  Holly

  This got off to a bad start for me, when on page 33 Kean equated Darwinian natural selection and "survival of the fittest." (Herbert Spencer and/or "social Darwinism" were never mentioned.) Then, in an incendiary chapter on cats and toxoplasmosis ("toxo") he never explains that a cat who has lived indoors all its life cannot carry/transmit the disease. Then .... what else? The tone was too cutesy and much of the material was too simplistic - glossing over opposing viewpoints, or assuming the reader's ignorance, or silly sentences like "I don't want to get all eugenicky on you ...." And he often went to pains not to use common terms such as "punctuated equilibrium," or corpus callosum, or haplotype - as if these would scare off the reader. At least once Kean committed the unforgiveable sin of calling chimpanzees and gorillas "monkeys."
  
  The other problem with this book was that there were no endnotes, per sé. Several times I wanted to know where Kean was getting his information - and whom/what he was paraphrasing - but had nowhere to go. There is a Selected Bibliography - the list of books and papers Kean claims to have "consulted while writing The Violinist's Thumb" - but it is sketchy, extremely short, and fairly non-scholarly. There is also a post-text section titled "Notes and Errata" - but it gave no citations whatsoever. (Not to mention the word "Errata" - why is it called that when there is no list of mistakes or corrections?)
  
  But, by the final chapter I'd come to like the book more, if only because I admired how much trivia and how many interesting anecdotes were crammed into 358 pages.
• 
  Susanna - Censored by GoodReads

  Fun. Covers everything from the attempt to breed humanzees and why humans have 46 rather than 48 chromosomes, to why you should decline any invitation to eat polar bear liver.
• 
  Ross Blocher

  Genes are at the heart of this book, and the author just happens to have parents named Gene and Jean (last name Kean), so this topic is in his... well, you get it. Sam Kean is one of my favorite authors, deftly explaining scientific concepts in the context of the fascinating figures who first brought them to our attention. The stories are full of the humor and foibles of real life, and that realistic treatment brings the people and situations to life all the more convincingly. Kean has a remarkable knack for finding fun anecdotes and interesting connections that reinforce concepts throughout his books. His enthusiasm is infectuous and bleeds out in the form of humor, copious end notes, additional notes and illustrations on his website, and in the case of this book: a hidden, acrostic message encoded in the... Chapters? Paragraphs? I've already spent a couple hours trying to decode it [and am likely over-thinking it], but figured I should write this review first, or who knows how long I'll be working this out?
  
  The Violinist's Thumb is about the history of genes and DNA: how we came to question the nature of inheritance, our first inklings of the structures involved, dalliances with fruit flies, sequencing genomes, encoding proteins, suffering mutations, puzzling over "freaks" and chimeras, swapping DNA with Neanderthals, detecting virus intrustions, all the way up to our current, improved-yet-incomplete understanding of what makes us us. As of 2012, anyhow. Having completed all four of Kean's books, I dub this the most challenging. The subject matter itself is incredibly dense, metaphorically as well as literally: six feet of DNA is crammed into every one of our cells, and the DNA from one body could travel from the sun to Pluto and almost return. Kean has to describe with words a lot of things that are hard to understand even with pictures, and there are a lot of moving parts (one again, literally) and competing, concurrent processes to consider when thinking about the complex actions of DNA, RNA, proteins, mutations, nutrients and drugs, bacteria, viruses and epigenetic factors. There are many passages I had to read multiple times just to understand well enough to procede - if you've had formal training in genetics, this will likely come much easier to you.
  
  Characters familiar and unfamiliar are represented. We of course learn a lot about Mendel and Darwin, but also about Friedrich Miescher and his efforts in a cold castle kitchen to extract dna from salmon sperm, never knowing exactly what he had accomplished. Thomas Hunt Morgan and the scientists in his lab bred gazillions of fruit flies in work that led to multiple Nobel Prizes, but Morgan he often took credit for ideas and never paid an essential contributor (he didn't pay the fruit flies, either). Watson and Crick are here, but so is Sister Miriam Michael Stimson, a nun who made their discovery possible (we also learn of the clergical error that led to her getting the name Michael, and that she contributed to the invention of Preparation H). Lynn Margulis's brilliant insight into endosymbionts is represented, as well as her other bold, unsubstantiated ideas. Barbra McClintock's skill with a microscope and identification of "jumping genes" is told in the light of the scientific scrutiny that drove her into seclusion, but later drew her back out as a science celebrity. We jump through history and learn of northern explorers dying (and nearly dying) at the razored-hands and nutrient-rich livers of polar bears (hint: you can over-do it with Vitamin A). Royal bloodlines and figures like Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, Henri Tolouse-Lautrec, Alexei Nikolaevich and the Hapsburgs teach us lessons about deleterious alleles. Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov worked hard to breed humans and chimpanzees, and it might have worked if it weren't for those meddling political ideologies. The titular violinist is Niccolo Paganini, whose genetic condition gave him extraordinarily flexible and strong hands, but also led to his miserable bodily decline (with the help of mercury poisoning).
  
  All of these fascinating stories (and many more), combined with artful scientific explanations, do a fantastic job of fleshing out one's understanding of genes, DNA, and the science of what it takes to build a body. A highly recommended read.
• 
  Rebecca

  Kean manages to cram enough information into this book to satisfy the armchair historian, biologist, or trivia aficionado, while somehow keeping it readable and entertaining.
  
  It's a rather monumental task, combining the history of science with the latest discoveries. He's pretty good about explaining without talking down. I think he assumed most of his readers would be like me--took bio in high school and have vaguely kept up with discoveries announced in the press, but have to shamefacedly admit that while we've heard of RNA, we can't really quite remember exactly what it does. He defines terms as he goes, assuming that you don't really remember or know a lot of this but that you're intelligent enough to keep up. I think I did, for the most part. There were so paragraphs that I'd definitely need to go back and reread, possibly with a reference, to fully understand, but he generally picks you again on the other side with enough of a layman's description that even if you didn't quite follow how all the proteins come together, you can still understand the overall implications by the end. And he does it without making you feel like a dolt, which is nice. Did I understand everything fully? No. Will I retain what I did get? Probably some of it, probably not all. But I think my overall understanding of where we stand at the moment is drastically improved.
  
  And all along, he illustrates the science with history. Stories about the scientists who made the discoveries, about famous cases from Paganini to Einstein, about weird discoveries in our own genome. (Did you know that an enormous amount of our DNA appears to have been stolen from bacteria and viruses? The placenta looks like it was reverse-engineered from the traits that retroviruses use to hide from immune systems. Without incorporating retrovirus DNA into our own, we never could have developed live birth.) He usually develops a sense of tension by introducing a story at the beginning of a chapter and leaving it at a cliffhanger to explain the science going on behind the case. He'll touch base with the chapter's story two or three times, using it to illustrate various facets of a discovery, before finally resolving the original story by the end of the chapter. It's a remarkably effective technique of breaking up the long explanations.
  
  Overall, it's a fascinating look about what we know about what makes our bodies work, and how we learned it.
• 
  Jimmy

  The author's parents were named Gene and Jean. That's right: Gene and Jean Kean. What else could their son do but write a book about genetics? And a fun book it is, with some fascinating stories.
  
  There is enough DNA in a human body to stretch from Pluto to the sun and back. There's enough DNA on earth to stretch across the known universe many, many times.
  
  Fruit fly genes have fun names, such as groucho, smurf, fear of intimacy, lost in space, smellblind, faint sausage, tribble (from the Star Trek episode), and tinman (if mutated, can prevent fruit flies from growing a heart). A mutant armadillo gene gives fruit flies a plated exoskeleton. The turnip gene makes flies stupid, like they just fell off the turnip truck. Tudor genes leave flies without progeny. When a cleopatra gene interacts with an asp gene, it can kill the fly. A cheap date gene leaves flies tipsy after a sip of alcohol. Ken and barby mutants have no genitalia. Male coitus interruptus gene mutants spend just ten minutes on sex when the norm is twenty. Stuck mutant genes cannot physically disengage after sex. Female dissatisfaction mutants have no sex at all.
  
  There are some fun names occasionally elsewhere also. A scaramanga gene, named after the James Bond villain, gives mammals extra nipples. The vlad tepes genes removes blood from fish. The pokemon gene almost provoked a lawsuit. The flour beetle's medea gene kills a female's progeny.
  
  If you ever think you had a bad day, just remember the story of Tsutoma Yamaguchi in August 1945. He survived two atomic explosions on that day. The whole story is pretty amazing, but I will never complain about my day again. He lived until the year 2010. The author points to the small hope in the fact that thousands of children of A-bomb survivors remained alive as he wrote the book.
  
  Zipf's Law states something like the biggest or most common item in each class was twice as big or common as the second item, which is twice as big as the third item, and so on. This seemed to apply with words that Mr. Zipf studied in great books. DNA may have Zipfian properties as well.
  
  Noam Chomsky stated "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" to show that meaningless sentences are independent of syntax. So the sentence itself is actually not quite devoid of meaning. Like modern poetry.
  
  Computer software concluded that Shakespeare indeed did write The Two Noble Kinsmen. But that he did not write Pericles. Do we believe it?
  
  Without the kickstart of mitochondria, primitive life might never have developed into higher life, much less intelligent human beings. The first organic molecules appeared near volcanic vents on the ocean floor. Organics were also imported from space. Life starting up was surprisingly easy. It was mitochondria that solved the problem of energy consumption. They allowed cells to expand their DNA repertoire 200,000 times.
  
  Polar bear livers have astronomical amounts of vitamin A. That vitamin allows seals to survive in the cold. Polar bears need it to pack on blubber. Poisons accumulate as you move up the food chain. Polar bears needed to deal with it or starve. Evolution saved them. Some explorers learned the hard way not to eat the livers of polar creatures.
  
  Chimpanzees have short spines on their penises. In other words, they have . . . well . . . ahem . . . prickly pricks. Humans lost them many years ago, thus prolonging copulation because male sensations decreased, to say nothing of battered vaginas.
  
  The human line almost went extinct multiple times.
  
  A biologist named Ivanov in Stalinist Russia tried to unite human and chimpanzee genes. He failed when he jammed human sperm into chimp vaginas and not their uteruses.
  
  Artificial insemination was considered shameful by the church. A barren couple having sex would have someone listening in at the door and then charge in at the last moment with a batch of sperm to shove into the woman in an effort to trick her egg cells into believing it came from intercourse.
  
  Trofim Lysenko almost killed Soviet agriculture by only believing in environment factors and never in heredity.
  
  After Einstein died, Thomas Harvey pilfered his brain for further study. It actually weighed less than normal. Americans in WWII took parts of Mussolini's bran to study a dictator.
  
  Folding in a brain does usually indicate higher functioning. Lack of brain folds is devastating.
  
  The sneeze reflex can be inherited and often uncontrollable. I know a bit about that since I cannot sneeze once. It usually takes me about ten or so before I stop.
  
  The great violinist Niccolo Paganini refused communion and confession on his deathbed fearing it would hasten his demise. The Church refused him proper burial. It took a few months to finally get him into a private garden where he rested for 36 years before the Church forgave him and permitted burial.
  
  Toulouse-Lautrec had a genetic disorder that left him with rotting teeth, a swelling nose, and lips that flopped open and drooled. Thus he wore a stylish beard. He encouraged rumors to help his reputation with you know who. He had the nickname "Tripod" for you know what. But he was a bit of a "dwarf." So he hung out in bars and bordellos. And he gave the characters there a little bit of dignity.
  
  The temptations of the Moulin Rouge--casual sex, late nights, and "strangling the parakeet," his euphemism for drinking himself stupid--took their toll on Toulouse-Lautrec's body. He used to keep liquor in a hollowed-out cane. It all eventually killed him.
  
  Charles Darwin was a wheezing wreck who disgusted even himself. He suffered from boils, fainting fits, heart flutters, numb fingers, insomnia, migraines, eczema, dizziness. He passed horrendous gas. Worst of all, he barfed all the time. He couldn't stop until he was dry heaving. He feared visiting the homes of others for fear of fouling up their privies. He even built his own hidden one.
  
  Darwin's favorite child died at age ten, thus ending any remnants of a religious faith. The great thing about Darwin is all that he accomplished under these conditions. A truly great man.
  
  The great Edward O. Wilson suggested there may be genetic roots to some social differences. He was blasted for it. Activists charged him onstage where he was in a wheelchair and threw ice water on him and shouting about genocide. Idiots.
  
  Some people thought of cloning Jesus himself by lifting DNA from the Shroud of Turin. Ridiculous, I know. But it brought out this great comment, "You are trying to bring back the one person who is supposed to come back anyway."
  
  There is a fucM gene in mice that can be changed to cause lesbians. I have never been able to figure out the Darwinian conundrum about homosexuality: It does not promote the species. No answers yet. Same with racial issues. Unfortunately, both are difficult to touch.
  
  Croesus once went to hear the oracle at Delphi: "You will destroy a great empire." Of course, it turned out to be his own. Our DNA is like an oracle. Do we want to listen?
• 
  Amanja

  The full title of The Violinist's Thumb fills in what it's about pretty well. Sam Kean takes the reader on an exploration of how genes and DNA can affect every little aspect of human life. He also goes into the history of how it was discovered, how it's been used and manipulated, and how it may be used in the future.
  
  It's a well written book, I've yet to be let down by Kean in that aspect. He really does his research and he knows how to meld history, science, and human interest into a fully readable story.
  
  My personal problem with this book is probably just my own. I think I've officially read too many books on subjects similar to those discussed in The Violinist's Thumb. I already knew a lot of what this book talks about.
  
  I am not saying this will be universal as I used to perform genetic research for my local science museum (before covid) so it makes sense that I already know a lot of the science. I found myself skimming those pages to get to the next story.
  
  But then I already knew the stories. I used to listen to hours and hours of podcasts a day while I was at work at my previous job. Many of these were science and history based so they already covered a lot of this ground. I suppose this is the burden of being very interested in a subject. At some point it's no longer new.
  
  If you are new to the subject matter this would be a great place to start. Kean makes difficult subjects approachable. His writing doesn't dumb everything down and sound condescending, he just makes it simple to understand.
  
  He finds truly interesting human interest stories to accompany the science and history lessons about genes and DNA. These stories really help make the lessons applicable to our own lives. It takes the lecture from the classroom to the home front.
  
  My only other complaint about this book is that there are many footnotes that add nothing to the context. I stopped checking them after a while because so few of them were at all interesting.
  
  Other than that this is a great science non-fiction read for those wanting to try out a new subject. For seasoned science readers there are probably still a few stories that you'll find interesting, I'm definitely glad I read it.
• 
  Sandra Deaconu

  Cartea de față mi s-a părut mult, mult mai accesibilă decât Lingura care dispare. Sigur că nu poți sări de la Sandra Brown la teoria dublului Helix, formulată de James Watson și Francis Crick în 1953, dar poți începe lectura chiar fără nicio informație despre ADN și genetică și să o termini cu mult mai multe decât ai putea crede. Vocea lui Kean este una importantă, nu doar în domeniul științelor, dar și al literaturii, și care a reușit să țeasă o poveste a genelor documentată temeinic, amuzantă, complexă, prietenoasă cu amatorii de știință, jovială și vastă.
  
  Despre Einstein și cum i-a fost furat creierul, despre Darwin și boala lui, despre rolul musculițelor de oțet și al mazării în descoperirea ADN-ului și a eredității, despre cum a ajuns un om de știință de la o tentativă de sinucidere la câștigarea premiului Nobel, despre cum a fost transcrisă una dintre nocturnele lui Chopin în ADN, despre cercetătoarea care a descoperit ,,genele săltărețe" și credea în OZN-uri, spirite și fenomene paranormale, despre legătura dintre Drumul Mătăsii, urșii polari și vitamina A; explică pe îndelete care e treaba cu genele dominante și recesive, cu influența geneticii, dar și a epigeneticii.. Să mai continui?! Lista este lungă...
  
  Nu am citit foarte multă nonficțiune, nici pe departe câtă aș fi vrut și trebuit, dar până acum aș spune că Sam Kean e cel mai complex autor din această categorie, având în vedere abordarea multidisciplinară. E imposibil să citești ceva de Kean și să nu rămâi cu informații noi în minte, așa că eu abia aștept să citesc și Chirugul și cuțitul de gheață. Recenzia aici:
  https://bit.ly/3lK9tMd.
  
  ,,Spre deosebire de alte animale, oamenii își gândesc deliberat și își modelează mediul imediat: avem cultura. Și, cu toate că ADN-ul potențator al creierului a fost necesar pentru crearea culturii, n-a fost și suficient. Aveam creier mare și în vremurile noastre de vânători-culegători (poate chiar mai mare decât azi), dar realizarea unei culturi sofisticate a necesitat și răspândirea genelor care să ne facă să digerăm mâncare gătită și să facem față unui stil de viață mai sedentar. Mai presus de toate, poate, avem nevoie de gene cu valențe culturale: gene care să ne ajute să-i tolerăm pe străini, să trăim docili sub conducerea altora și să suportăm sexul monogam; gene care să ne mărească disciplina, să ne permită amânarea gratificației și realizarea unor lucruri la scară de timp generațională. Per ansamblu, așadar, genele au influențat ce fel de cultură vom avea, dar cultura s-a aplecat înapoi și ne-a influențat si ea ADN-ul. iar înțelegerea celor mai mărețe realizări culturale - arta, știința, politica - cere înțelegerea modului în care ADN-ul si cultura se intersectează și evoluează împreună.''
• 
  Caroline

  ***NO SPOILERS***
  
  This is an intriguing but brainy read that requires not just an interest in biology but a good understanding of it. Readers should be prepared to harken back to biology class(es) to recall that A pairs with T, and C pairs with G on the DNA strand--and that’s one of the easier parts of this book. Nevertheless, the book contains enough concrete, easier-to-grasp ideas and information to keep the content from ever being dry. There’s also something to be said for Sam Kean’s engaging style. He has a talent for presenting the complex in an appealing way, and humorously at times too. In particular, the section about cat-hoarding is fascinating, as is the section explaining modern humans’ connection to Neanderthals. Recommended!
  
• 
  etherealfire

  This book was really good and I can't believe how long it took me to finish it. But even though it is written in a way that makes it easy and engaging for anyone, I found that I had to take lots of time to absorb it. I'd leave it for days at a time and then not get very far. But it wasn't due to being boring or dry. Sam Kean is an engaging story teller and he made a complicated work very accessible!
• 
  Brian Clegg

  I was a great fan of Sam Kean’s The Disappearing Spoon, so it was excellent to see a followup in The Violinist’s Thumb. The violinist in question was Paganini who had a genetic disorder that enabled him to bend his thumb back far beyond the usual limit. And this is an indirect hint about the subject of the book – DNA and our genetic code.
  
  This is, without doubt, a very good book. A quote from New Scientist on the front compares Sam Kean’s writing to that of Bill Bryson – I think this delusional, and possibly a little unfair on Kean. I’d say he is, as a pure writer, better than Bryson, but lacks Bryson’s superb comic touch. Kean attempts humour, but it certainly isn’t up to Bryson – the comparison just doesn’t make sense. The good news is that once again Kean has brought an aspect of science alive with a ton of excellent anecdotes about the individuals involved, in this case in everything from studying the fruit flies that form the fingerprint on the cover of the book to cracking our genetic code in the Human Genome Project.
  
  Along the with, if, like me, you aren’t a biologist you will certainly learn plenty. It might seem trivial but the best thing I went away with was the realisation that in DNA’s base pairs it’s easy to remember that A goes with T and C with G, because the curved letters go together and the straight ones similarly. However, I simply didn’t enjoy it as much as Disappearing Spoon. That book was a page turner that I couldn’t wait to get back to – this was a bit of plough through experience.
  
  This is mostly not Kean’s fault (except for the fact the book is too long, but that might have been imposed on him). It’s the subject. It simply doesn’t have the variety that arose from looking at different elements – here you are on the same single subject throughout. And sometimes, because of this, the entertaining side stories weren’t helpful because I lost track of the theme they interrupted. I also found that because it is a single topic, I really wanted a lot more depth, but Kean continues to skip on, focussing on storytelling not content, telling us things without really explaining them. On a technical issue I would also say that Kean leaves epigenetics too late and should have integrated it more into the rest – as it stands its importance really doesn’t come across.
  
  Overall it’s an excellent book – highly readable and with lots of great stories. It’s just that Kean’s style isn’t quite as suited to this topic as it was to the elements, and so this title is rather overshadowed by its predecessor.
  
  Review first published on
  www.popularscience.co.uk and reproduced with permission
• 
  Joel

  Reading Sam Kean is like eating popcorn. Tastes great, somewhat filling, and mildly nutritious, but somehow it leaves you feeling a bit empty. I’ve now read two of Kean’s books – The Disappearing Spoon and The Violinist’s Thumb, and I greatly enjoyed both. He covers lots of ground and makes it interesting and entertaining. In this book, he covers the history of DNA and genetics from the early 1800s until today and hits all the major and even the minor players – Lamarck, Cuvier, Darwin, Mendel, Miescher, de Vries, Hunt Morgan, and of course Watson and Crick, as well as a few other notables, while throwing in some fun anecdotes and making the science clear and fun at the same time. But having read other popular science histories–Thomas Hager comes to mind–I feel like Kean’s treatment is slightly superficial. If you were to ask me in six months from now to recount some of the things I learned from this book, I’d likely come up empty (just like if you’d ask me now about what I remember from The Disappearing Spoon). It also doesn’t help that he overdoes it on the clichés, references, and wordplay. The book just doesn’t seem “intelligent” enough. He does address some important philosophical questions, especially on the last chapter where he presents a very insightful discussion on genetics and racism, but overall, the tone of the book seems most appropriate for a bright high schooler. But who am I to complain? I really enjoyed myself reading it, and learned a great deal about a topic I didn’t know much about. It would be like complaining that they put too much butter in my popcorn. Yum!
• 
  Zoe (Zthecapybara)

  This book is full of fascinating discoveries and historical accounts. However, the writing style of going into sub-topics at any given point in the explanation isn't always the clearest. I found it very useful for developing my interest in my A-Level Biology course and I will definitely annotate this book within an inch of it's life 😂.
• 
  Tracey

  As usual, the actual contents of this Netgalley book came as a bit of a surprise – really? I requested a book about DNA? How unusual. And it is, very; I like a book which will feed me good solid science which has been cut into easily digested pieces rather than either handed to me whole or reduced to baby food, but I haven't read one in some time.
  
  The fact that I was thinking of polar bear livers while typing that last sentence is an indication of how well this book has done its job.
  
  Do I now understand all there is to know about DNA and genetics?
  *
  
  *
  
  *
  Oh, sorry. I was laughing too hard to type there for a minute. Because – No: I'm still an idiot in the world of science. I am now able to parrot the fact of, say, A-T and C-G pairings, and I have a tenuous grasp on what it means, but for me the general feeling is much like I remember from high school science, when I learned that color wasn't what I thought it was and that water is part of everything, even the most solid and desiccated of objects, on a cellular level. Information like that fights with my worldview. I understand the words on a theoretical level, like phasers and tribbles. It's the practical science that escapes me.
  
  Which in no way is to detract from Mr. Kean's book. It's excellent. It's a joy. The fault, dear reader, lies not in my book but in myself, I'm sorry to say.
  
  But I do know a whole heck of a lot more than I did when I started, and – more importantly – I understand a whole heck of a lot more than I did when I started. As for what I still don't understand … well, Mr. Kean did not leave me feeling like the idiot I am, despite the fact that he explained as clearly and simply – and, often, humorously – as any human being could. And every page was painted with the wonder Mr. Kean obviously still finds in science. If all teachers managed to demonstrate this sense of wonder into their lessons, the world would be a smarter place.
  
  And in between and around the bits that refuse to compute, there was a tremendous amount of information I could happily wallow in. I had no idea of the gravity of the reasons behind keeping pregnant women away from kitty litter – and really, it is serious, don't go anywhere near it. It never occurred to me that there could be people who survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki both, and no real concept of what that did to them. I never knew the quirky biographies of Darwin and Mendel, Thomas Hunt Morgan, Watson and Crick, or any of the other madmen that fills these pages. And of course the title condition, that which made Niccolò Paganini what he was, which allowed him speed and flexibility that led his listeners to believe he had traded in his soul for them – a beautiful piece of forensic diagnosis, and such fun to read. The humor never gets in the way of the learning, but – as with all the best teachers – facilitates it. It's wonderful.
  
  Literally.
• 
  Jessica

  The Violinist's Thumb tells the story of the genetic code through the stories of the scientists who made discoveries about the genetic code, people affected by genetic mutations, and others. And the book is fascinating. I don't really have any science background to speak of, but I was pretty well able to follow the descriptions of the scientific information.
  
  How I found this book was through the author's blog on Slate found
  here, where he shared some of the stories from the book in a shortened format. So if you are wondering if you would like the book, you may want to check that out.
• 
  Betsy

  I enjoyed this book, and I learned a number of things, but I also felt a little disappointed by it. It was a fairly easy read, not requiring much science knowledge, and it was well written, with humor and a relaxed story-telling vibe. But I felt that it lacked a cohesive purpose. The author told a lot of stories about what genes can do and have done, and they were all interesting and enjoyable to read. But at the end of the book, I still felt that I didn't understand a lot about how genes work and how they fit into our biology.
• 
  Justin

  Science!
  
  Kean’s newest nonfiction book traces the history of DNA, from humankind’s earliest attempts to understand how life develops through to the implications of working with the recently unzipped human genome. There’s plenty of hard science that introduces the structure and inner workings of chromosomes, but the book is definitely written for the layperson.
  
  Much like Mary Roach’s works, The Violinist’s Thumb is divided into thematic chapters that are composed of related vignettes that range from fascinating and tragic to offbeat and absurd. These vignettes tend to connect to and reference each other, due to the generally linear progression of scientific breakthroughs related to DNA. While the book doesn’t qualify as narrative nonfiction, I got a clear sense of a solid beginning, plenty of harrowing adventures in the middle, and an ambiguously open ending.
  
  The stories in each section range far and wide in their subject matter, from mystery illnesses and scientific scandals to frog sex and microscopic sculptures. In short, it delivered everything I want from science nonfiction: plenty of offbeat curiosities and humorous asides to give context to complex, genuinely interesting scientific information. Kean writes simply and offers plenty of casual (and occasional acerbic) editorials, which occasionally come off as one-liners but still keep the more data-driven sections from seeming too much like a textbook.
  
  There is enough simplification and use of weasel words to annoy readers who are already well-versed in the subject matter, but it’s absolutely perfect for someone like me: eternally interested in science, but not all that adept with the lingo or basic theory. After finishing this book, I’ve been casually perusing articles and videos on molecular biology, which says almost everything I need to about it. Thankfully, Kean includes a meaty reference list with plenty of suggestions for what to read next on the subject. As mentioned above, a few of the chapters may be a little hard to follow for people without a science background, but this is a must-read for anybody who has even a passing interest in what DNA is, how it works, and how our understanding of it has evolved and affected almost everything we do. There is more than enough compelling human drama in these pages to offset the strings of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts.
• 
  Sonja Arlow

  I enjoyed
  The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, a book that tackled the periodic table and the history behind it. The book included a range of humorous side stories that surrounded elemental discoveries/use/dangers.
  
  Stories such as the unfortunate Stan Jones who, through his own sloppy self-experimentation, ingested too much silver and turned blue, FOREVER. A real life Papa Smurf.... But the book was also filled with concepts such as quantum theory and high-level chemistry that I just could not grasp no matter how many times I re-read the sentences.
  
  This book focuses on DNA and how our blueprint defines and directs our traits. It runs in a similar vein as the Disappearing Spoon, however I could only hold out till Chapter 4. It contained just too much high-level science discussions and lingo than what I was prepared to decipher. I only have an interest, not an education, in medicine and biology and unfortunately the scientific explanations overshadowed the interesting trivia.
  
  I normally do not abandon books but sadly this one will go onto my very small DNF pile. Perhaps one day I will try again.
  
  
• 
  Charlene

  I read quite a number of biology books and am often put off by the old gene jocks who focus on DNA, to the exclusion of epigenetic and other environmental factors that challenge the old and tired narrative of the gene centered theory of evolution. When I saw the title of this book, I felt pretty sure I wasn't going to like it, but many of my friends gave it high ratings. So, I thought I would give it a shot. Loved it!
  
  Just as he did with Disappearing Spoon, Kean brought a fresh perspective to an ordinary subject. Among my favorite aspects of this book were:
  
  - The names fruit fly scientists gave various genes, on example being the Cleopatra gene that, when mutated, kills other flies when it interacts with a gene named Asp.
  - Machiavellian microbes that turn humans into cat hoarders and ants into big berry-like creatures birds want to eat, all so microbes can make it into the guts of animals and mate.
  - Wonderful history of Barbara McClintock
  - How the human placenta came to be, how fetuses are really parasites, and how viruses are brilliant.
  -Einstein's brain
  - Painting chimps
  - Women who lust after rock (or violin) stars
  - And how genes proved and disproved myths of days gone by
  
  Great read!
• 
  Sarah

  This book reads like a year's worth of blog posts bound between two covers. The snarky, hipster, ironic tone grows ever more grating. Use of words and phrases like "natch," "they threw up in their mouths," "then, just for fun, his marriage fell apart" are absolutely the way people of my age group would tell each other these stories in person, but when in the process of writing, editing, and publishing a book, it's time to grow up a bit, don't you think? It's an unfortunate distraction, since the stories are quite fascinating, and Kean has a definite gift for analogy: a critical one when explaining abstract concepts like genes and proteins.
  The science is very approachable. Basic, but this book is for you if you know nothing about DNA and can put up with irritating turns of phrase that may make you feel like a cranky old lady in a rocking chair telling the kids to stop saying "like" and "awesome."
• 
  Luminița Gabura

  Very well documented book, providing enough historical facts from various ages and parts of the world, but focusing on the human DNA at the same time. It explains the evolution of the DNA along with discovery of genes, coming up to the rhetorical question what is next for the human DNA.
  I am happy it was recommended to me, otherwise I don't think I would have picked it by myself in a library. I would recommend it to people that enjoyed reading the books of Yuval Noah Harari. It is written in a similar way, and though it is a scientific book you will not be bored while reading
• 
  Candace

  Very scientific; the majority of the book is a primer in what DNA is, how it works, and the scientists who have played a part in its history. There are interesting narratives involving DNA, for example why crazy cat hoarders are the way they are, but I felt I had to work for them, I.e. The equivalent of taking a college exam in genetics. (Which, by the way, I did, and made an A in!)
  
  Recommended only for those very interested in science and not just the beach reading type!
• 
  Carlos

  Wow, just wow . I'm glad that I found this book , the information in it is very important for the audience to know , after reading this book you'll understand how your genes are responsible for propensity to addiction, illnesses, deformation and even to genius. Highly recommend it to anyone interested into learning the language in which human life is based .
• 
  Crystal

  Non-Fiction>Science, DNA
  
  This was a fantastic book. It is full of information and a wonderfully entertaining style (considering the subject) from the author. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and learned a lot along the way. If you have any desire to read this after reading the description, I highly recommend you give it a try.
  
  From discussions of evolution to the nuclear weapons deployed in Japan this book is full of stories and not just fact after fact. There is no 'text book' feel to the writing. My favorite chapter discussed linguistics. My second favorite part was the final chapter about epigenetics and the [near?] future of our understanding DNA and genes.
  
  There were several new words I encountered reading this and I feel that the author did this purposefully...using words that are uncommon and rarely repeating descriptors for which he could find a synonym to spice up the prose.
  
  "Our DNA does circumscribe us; but where we fall within our range of possibilities—our statures, what diseases we’ll catch, how our brains handle stress or temptation or setbacks—depends on more than DNA."
  
  "...the most remarkable story about DNA is that our species survived long enough to (potentially) master it."
  
  
  "...ultraviolet sunlight can fuse them together at an odd angle, which kinks DNA. These accidents can kill cells outright or simply irritate them. Virtually all animals (and plants) have special handyman enzymes to fix T-T kinks, but mammals lost them during evolution—which is why mammals sunburn."
  
  "...Zipf’s law. It says that the most common word in a language appears roughly twice as often as the second most common word, roughly three times as often as the third most common, a hundred times as often as the hundredth most common, and so on. In English, the accounts for 7 percent of words, of about half that, and a third of that, all way down to obscurities like grawlix or boustrophedon."
  
  "Unusually for genes, hox remain tightly linked after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, almost always appearing together along continuous stretches of DNA."
  
  "The name Human Genome Project even became something of a misnomer, because it turned out that 8 percent of our genome isn’t human at all: a quarter billion of our base pairs are old virus genes. Human genes actually make up less than 2 percent of our total DNA, so by this measure, we’re four times more virus than human."
  
  "...if the Toba-bottleneck theory is true, then the lack of diversity in human DNA has a simple explanation. We damn near went extinct."
  
  "As with scientists studying DNA, pilgrims to the Delphic oracle in ancient Greece always learned something profound about themselves when they inquired of it—but rarely what they assumed they’d learned at first."
• 
  Ellie

  DNA. It’s in all of us but did you know it tells a story? Both of the human race and its own story of discovery. The Violinist’s Thumb is not only an introduction to the science of DNA but a trip through history from Mendel to the Human Genome Project and Neanderthals to crazy cat people.
  
  My knowledge of DNA comes from high school biology, Jurassic Park and numerous crime shows and books, so I’m by no means in a position to understand high-brow scientific tomes. Instead, Sam Kean manages to entertain and educate. The conversational tone dips into more technical territory now and then but just as you think it’s about to go over your head, it returns to an amusing anecdote. I fell I have a better understanding of how DNA works and how it’s shaped us as humans.
  
  I learned so many fascinating facts. That there could be a biological reason that otherwise sane people turn into crazy cat hoarders; toxoplasma gondii (a parasite caught from cats) will release dopamine into the brain when the infected individual smells cat pee. So cats make them happy. The case study here, were a couple that held the world record for most cats in one home; 689! I could go on all day about the things I picked up but I need to leave some for you to discover yourself.
  
  What is often left out of scientific history, are the people behind the discoveries. We may know all about Mendel’s peas but not that his research was destroyed because of his politics and not his science (I’m pretty sure his fellow monks were appreciative of his pea improvement). It’s also quite common for geneticists to try and explain historical figures through their genes, what does Einstein’s brain say about his genius? And there was a wonderful section about Toulouse-Lautrec, whilst his family’s inbreeding was tragic, his disadvantages probably led to his art. Just as a genetic condition blessed and blighted the title’s inspiration, virtuoso violinist, Niccolò Paganini.
  
  My only grumble was a couple of errors that should have been picked up by an editor. We cannot possibly be 8% not human and only 2% human; that just doesn’t add up. I know that the author meant 8% virus DNA and 2% unique to human DNA, but it wasn’t worded that way and for a scientist, maths should be important. There was another similar thing, where he stated “virtually all animals” and then excluded all mammals in the same sentence. Virtually all would imply mammals to most of us, would it not? There may have been other slip-ups but these were surrounded in paragraphs that included things I wanted to quote and realised they didn’t make sense when I looked more closely. The fact that I still think this a five star read, shows you how much I got out of it.