Praise for She Has Her Mother’s Laugh —The New York Times Book Review —The New York Times, "Paperback Row"—The Atlantic She Has Her Mother's Laugh ]...is its combination of accuracy, journalistic clarity and scientific authority...If the science doesn’t matter to you now, it will soon."—The Washington Post —Wall Street Journal El Mundo —Minneapolis Star-Tribune “Expansive, engrossing, and often enlightening... Zimmer takes readers on a tale through time and technology, from the inbred Holy Roman Empire to the birthplace of American eugenics to the Japanese lab where scientists are reprogramming skin cells into eggs and sperm."—Wired —National Review She Has Her Mother's Laugh is, as promised, a showcase of the powers, perversions and potential of what we truly gain from our past and pass on to our future.” —New Scientist — NatureShe Has Her Mother’s Laugh , with a sweeping overview of the history of our understanding of heredity… [He is] one of the best science journalists of our time.”— Science—Publishers Weekly (starred review) —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) —Booklist (starred review) —Library Journal Shelf Awareness —O, The Oprah Magazine She Has Her Mother’s Laugh is one of the best books ever written about genetics, along with Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Gene . They’re the two bookends."— Science Friday, Best Science Books of 2018— Jamie Green, Thrillist's Best Books of 2018She Has Her Mother’s Laugh David Grann , author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z “She Has Her Mother's Laugh is at once far-ranging, imaginative, and totally relevant. Carl Zimmer makes the complex science of heredity read like a novel, and explains why the subject has been—and always will be—so vexed.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sixth Extinction Robert Sapolsky , Stanford University, author of Behave She Has Her Mother's Laugh is a masterpiece—a career-best work from one of the world's premier science writers, on a topic that literally touches every person on the planet.”Ed Yong , author of I Contain Multitudes Your Inner Fish She Has Her Mother’s Laugh build a fundamentally new perspective on what previous generations have delivered to us, and what we can pass along. An outstanding book and great accomplishment.”—Daniel Levitin, author of This is Your Brain on Music and The Organized Mind Jennifer Doudna, UC Berkeley, coauthor of A Crack in Creation She Has Her Mother's Laugh is a superb guide to a subject that is only becoming more important. Along the way, it explains some remarkably complicated science with equally remarkable clarity—a totally impressive job all around.”—Charles C. Mann, author of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus She Has Her Mother’s Laugh explains how our emerging understanding of genetics is touching almost every part of society, and will increasingly touch our lives.” —Charles Duhigg, author of Smarter Faster Better and The Power of Habit —Kevin Padian, professor of integrative biology, UC Berkeley “How every characteristic—from genes to personality—is passed down from one generation to the next is one the most fundamental, complex, misunderstood and misused enigmas of biology. In this beautifully written, heartfelt and enjoyable masterpiece, Zimmer weaves together history, autobiography and science to elucidate the mysteries of heredity and why we should care. I couldn’t put this book down, and can’t recommend it too highly.” — Daniel E. Lieberman, Harvard University, author of The Story of the Human Body She Has Her Mother’s Laugh is at once enlightening and utterly compelling. Carl Zimmer weaves spellbinding narrative with luminous science writing to give us the story of heredity, the story of us all. Anyone interested in where we came from and where we are going—which is to say everyone—will want to read it.”—Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Genius of Birds and Chance in the House of Fate She Has Her Mother's Laugh takes readers on an endlessly mesmerizing journey of what it means to be human. Carl Zimmer has created a brilliant canvas of life that is at times hopeful, at times horrifying, and always beautifully rendered. I could hope for no better guide into the complexities, perils, and, ultimately, potential of what the science of heredity has in store for the world.” —Maria Konnikova, author of The Confidence Game “With his latest work, Zimmer has assured his place as one of the greatest science writers of our time. She Has Her Mother’s Laugh — Brian Hare, Duke University, coauthor of The Genius of Dogs —Bitch Media
…extraordinary…Zimmer uses history to offer a rigorous introduction to the basic principles of genetics…[and] challenges our conventional wisdom about heredity…This book is Zimmer at his best: obliterating misconceptions about science with gentle prose. He brings the reader on his journey of discovery as he visits laboratory after laboratory, peering at mutant mosquitoes and talking to scientists about traces of Neanderthal ancestry within his own genome. Any fan of his previous books or his journalism will appreciate this work. But so, too, will parents wishing to understand the magnitude of the legacy they're bequeathing to their children, people who want to grasp their history through genetic ancestry testing and those seeking a fuller context for the discussions about race and genetics so prevalent today.
The New York Times Book Review - Jennifer Raff
★ 02/19/2018
A masterpiece—a career-best work from one of the world's premier science writers, on a topic that literally touches every person on the planet.
Humans have long noticed something remarkable, namely that organisms are similar but not identical to their parents—in other words, that some traits can be inherited. From this observation has grown the elegant science of genetics, with its dazzling medical breakthroughs. And from this has also grown the toxic pseudosciences of eugenics, Lysenkoism and Nazi racial ideology. Carl Zimmer traces the intertwined histories of the science and pseudoscience of heredity. Zimmer writes like a dream, teaches a ton of accessible science, and provides the often intensely moving stories of the people whose lives have been saved or destroyed by this topic. I loved this book.
No one unravels the mysteries of science as brilliantly and compellingly as Carl Zimmer, and he has proven it again with She Has Her Mother’s Laugh—a sweeping, magisterial book that illuminates the very nature of who we are.
Carl Zimmer lifts off the lid, dumps out the contents, and sorts through the pieces of one of history's most problematic ideas: heredity. Deftly touching on psychology, genetics, race, and politics, She Has Her Mother's Laugh is a superb guide to a subject that is only becoming more important. Along the way, it explains some remarkably complicated science with equally remarkable clarity--a totally impressive job all around.
If you’ve submitted your DNA to one of the popular ancestry services and would like to increase your ability to interpret the results or are just curious about heredity, biological inheritance, and genetic research, this is the audiobook for you. Narrator Joe Ochman’s personable delivery helps listeners become caught up in these accessible explanations of the meaning and implications of heredity. His straightforward performance is a good match for author Carl Zimmer’s well-rounded examination of what it means to know your genetic makeup as well as how past and ongoing work in genetic engineering and gene therapy affect—and will continue to affect—our our lives. Newsworthy research, quiet experiments, and the author’s personal experiences enliven the story of a century of genetic discoveries. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
If you’ve submitted your DNA to one of the popular ancestry services and would like to increase your ability to interpret the results or are just curious about heredity, biological inheritance, and genetic research, this is the audiobook for you. Narrator Joe Ochman’s personable delivery helps listeners become caught up in these accessible explanations of the meaning and implications of heredity. His straightforward performance is a good match for author Carl Zimmer’s well-rounded examination of what it means to know your genetic makeup as well as how past and ongoing work in genetic engineering and gene therapy affect—and will continue to affect—our our lives. Newsworthy research, quiet experiments, and the author’s personal experiences enliven the story of a century of genetic discoveries. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
★ 2018-03-19
