The Song of the Cell

An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

By: Siddhartha Mukherjee

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene, a #1 New York Times bestseller, comes his most spectacular book yet, about the fundamental unit of life. Rich with Mukherjee's revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer's exploration of what it means to be human.

In the late 1600s, a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek look down their hand-made microscopes. What they see introduces a radical concept that sweeps through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences, and altering both forever. It is 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 christens 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 re-conceived as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies.

In The Song of the Cell, Mukherjee tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. He seduces readers with writing so vivid, lucid and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling. Told in six parts, 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.

© Siddhartha Mukherjee 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critic reviews

Brilliant ... medical magic ... written with compassionate warmth and humour

Wonderfully ambitious... Cell biology is complex and as big a topic as life itself; I'm not sure a writer could cover it better

If you are not already in awe of biology, The Song of the Cell might get you there. It is a masterclass

Vast, important ... optimistic

Some of the writing in The Song of the Cell is so lovely that you can get caught up in its music

A confident, timely - and most importantly, biologically precise - exploration of what it means to be human

Part mystery, part adventure story, The Song of the Cell is an irresistible foray into the frontiers of medical science [and] a reminder of the power of human ingenuity that is likely to leave readers both enlightened and hopeful.

A passionate, expert guide ... Mukherjee's ambition has once again paid off, creating an encyclopaedic exploration of how we got to this point - and sketching out the questions we must ask about the future

A remarkable achievement - a fascinating and highly readable crash course on the complexities of cellular physiology and of life itself

For anyone who wants to understand the building blocks of their own bodies - which everyone surely should - this is an informative and entertaining introduction

Masterful

I am an older doctor who learned a great deal from this audiobook. I greatly admire not only the author’s breadth of knowledge, but the engaging way in which he conveys it. The narrator sounded convincingly as though he had written the book (except for a couple of pronunciations I would have changed - pedant that I am). I unreservedly recommend this book to both the professional and lay audiences.

Spellbinding

Erudite Asks the right questions and endlessly fascinating view of the basic deconstructed bits of ourselves