mbrogs2024's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.0


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angorarabbit's review against another edition

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challenging informative inspiring sad slow-paced

4.0

TLDR: You need some background in life sciences. If you put the time it needs you will learn a lot. 
 
Context: I read The Emperor of All Maladies a while ago and was left unsatisfied. After reading this book I believe that I did not spend the time or brain power that book needed for me to understand it. I may also have been hindered by false expectations that the book would tell me that cancer is cured. Cancer sucks. 
 
I really regret my poor education in life sciences right now. Fortunately I was reading this as a Libby library book on the Kindle app which made looking up definitions so much easier. Even though I was way above my education level with this book I do feel I have a better understanding of how the cells of my body work. A post-secondary class in a non Evangelical environment would have helped. 
 
I am blinded with science. So much complexity. So much has to work exactly right every time. All those cells singing all those metaphorical songs so my brain can fire and I can attempt to understand the digital print in front of me. 
 
Professor Mukherjee breaks up the medical content with stories of patients and scientists and starts chapters with a verse of poetry or a quote (hIs poetry selections are worth looking up to read the entire poem). This helped break up a very dense book. I had trouble with concentration, sometimes needing to reread a paragraph as my mind would wander. The patient stories also helped me understand real life consequences . 
 
Professor Mukherhjee names the female scientists and scientists from continents other than Europe and North America who often don’t get named in US nonfiction science books. He also takes the time to acknowledge that women did not get named as authors in scientific papers until the last few decades even though they may have done much of the lab work. He also used she/her when speaking about scientists in general. I appreciated this as all too often it seems that no one like me is mentioned in this type of book except as breast and cervical cancer patients..

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taytots24's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.25


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rorikae's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

4.25

Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee is an informative look at the history of science surrounding the cell from discoveries to the people who have helped spur on these developments. Mukherjee takes the reader through different moments where cell biology made great strides from understanding IVF to AIDs. He does this by looking at different sides of the cell and a corresponding discovery. 
Mukherjee's writing easily brings the reader into the topic and he breaks down complex scientific findings into easily understandable pieces. These individual sections build upon one another until the reader has a good understanding of the cell and how it works as a central piece of biology. 
I will definitely be picking up more of Mukherjee's writing in the future because he makes science accessible and easy to understand in a way I have not seen before. He is a good teacher who understands how to build his student's (and reader's) understanding through small, digestible pieces of information that build to form a whole. 

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