My parents gave me this book as a Christmas gift. I had been working in a lab with cells and all sorts of other things for about six months by then, and I was (and still am) convinced that research was the place to be. Thus, the book. About cells. I also received The Gene, another fantastic book written by Mukherjee, that I still have not finished reading.

In The Song of the Cell, Mukherjee describes cells and their interactions, slowly building up the the crowning discussion of the book: gene therapy and its consequences. From the get-go, this book is engaging. I fully admit that part of this is because I’ve taken classes about biology and cells and I work with cells on a weekly basis—my love for this book is inseparable from my love of the lab.