The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has a written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant and illuminating as his biography of cancer. Interweaving science, social history and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee tells the story of our quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates and choices.