The Lives of a Cell

I loved this book because it demonstrates we can write about any subject we have a passion for: bowling, the bassoon, the Canary Islands, UFOs, opium, truffles, cats and dogs, evil and good, or cells!

Thomas starts his book by marveling about cells. Vivid imagination, not labor, carries him to subjects like insects, music, language, computers, and medicine. After all, they are interconnected, like we are. 

Which means I need only start with one subject* that stirs my wonder or worry and holds meaning for me. I don’t need to hunt for something to write about, it is right in… show more.

This collection of essays was perhaps the first and most successful attempt by a physician-scientist to share a love of so many areas of science and medicine with such a wide audience with such sparkling prose. Indeed, he was called a poet.

Thomas published each essay first in the world’s premier medical journal—The New England Journal of Medicine—but the collection went far beyond a medical audience and won a National Book Award.

I loved that Thomas smashed the glass walls that divide one area of science from another and that divide a seemingly esoteric profession from the public.… show more.

This is not your typical pop science book.

In a series of short essays, Thomas, a physician, researcher, and National Book Award winner twice over, takes an unconventional look at the natural world. The territory he covers is vast – from protozoa inhabiting the digestive tracts of termites to the titular essay comparing the earth to a cell – and Thomas makes his way through his subjects with the most delightful prose.

Even when the science is outdated, his insights are spot-on, such as this observation: “Given any new technology for transmitting information, we seem bound to use it for… show more.

Another big picture mind-blazer. Thomas shows you how everything from a single cell and the social life of ants to human culture and a planet filled with life works. And he shows you this in breathtaking ways.  Ways that will forever change the way you see.