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.”

Nothing could be more fundamental to life than cells. The Song of the Cell tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, how to fix them when they went wrong, and are even using that knowledge to create new versions of humans by genetic engineering. With chapters such as An Invisible World, The Developing Cell, The Healing Cell, The Contemplating Cell, and The Selfish Cell, and laced with the author’s own experience as a researcher and a doctor, The Song of the Cell is both panoramic and intimate—a masterpiece on what it means to be human. Named a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and more!

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