See more: An illustrated version of this article will be published within the next two weeks on our CultureLab books and arts blog
THE waitress stopped as she passed my table. āIs that a mystery youāre reading? Cover looks like it.ā āNo,ā I answered. āItās a fast-paced, breezy romp through history using DNA as a unifying theme ā itās nerd-vana.ā
In truth, itās a wonder that I broke away for long enough to converse at all, given the wealth of engaging information contained in every paragraph of this book.
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In it, science writer Sam Kean sets out to explain many human phenomena in the light of DNA, speeding from personality quirks of early geneticists to evidence for interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans.
The bookās title refers to Keanās retrospective diagnoses of medical conditions in historical figures, in this case attributing Ehlers-Danlos syndrome to NiccolĆ² Paganini, the violinist. One symptom is double-jointedness, which would help explain his virtuosic abilities.
There are a few problems. When explaining the transmission of leukaemia between a woman and her fetus, Kean asserts that maternal-fetal microchimerism does not happen. In fact, have some of our motherās ā and, if you are a mother, your childās ā cells within us. Keanās example is just a tragic demonstration of the phenomenon, as cancer cells are among those that cross the placental barrier.
Despite some slips like this, Keanās book is engaging. I couldnāt help scribbling on pages, with comments equally split between āooh, interesting!ā and ādouble check thisā. Either way, The Violinistās Thumb kept me hooked.
The Violinistās Thumb
Doubleday/Little, Brown