She Has Her Mother's Laugh

2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist "Science book of the year" -- The Guardian One of New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2018 One of Publishers Weekly 's Top Ten Books of 2018 One of Kirkus 's Best Books of 2018 One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 “Extraordinary”-- New York Times Book Review "Magisterial" -- The Atlantic "Engrossing" -- Wired "Leading contender as the most outstanding nonfiction work of the year" -- Minneapolis Star-Tribune Celebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities... But, Zimmer writes, “Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are--our appearance, our height, our penchants--in inconceivably subtle ways.” Heredity isn’t just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors--using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates--but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer’s lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world’s best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations....

Praise for She Has Her Mother’s Laugh

“Extraordinary...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

"Zimmer dispels longstanding scientific misconceptions, introduces facts that may surprise you and brings readers on a delightful journey of genetic discovery."
—The New York Times, "Paperback Row"

“Magisterial...In Zimmer’s pages, we discover a world minutely threaded with myriad streams of heredity flowing in all directions, in variegated patterns and different registers.”
*—The Atlantic*

"The strength of [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

“Zimmer is careful and well-informed... Acquired traits can be inherited. Biological time can turn backward. And monsters are real.”
—Wall Street Journal

"Carl Zimmer’s magnum opus, probing myriad strands of science through the prism of decadeslong, stellar reporting, and a leading contender as the most outstanding nonfiction work of the year…a lush, enthralling book that transforms the reader with its insights.”
—*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*

“A chronicle of timeless values, and the permanent importance of bonds of kinship and the passing of generations in human culture. It is also a stark caution against human hubris, as the early decades of hereditary science show just how much damage science can cause when it’s poorly done and unethically applied. Finally, it is a wondrous exposé of the rapid-fire results and advances being made in 21st-century genetics, and the social and cultural consequences that they might unleash.”
—National Review

"Nuanced, entertaining and balances eloquent story-telling with well-researched science... Anyone interested in their path through history, and what they may hand on, will find much to excite them... 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

“A beguiling narrative… Whatever your views on the power of genes versus other forms of heredity, you will be in for a few surprises.”
—*Nature
 

• "Into this zeitgeist enters Carl Zimmer’s most enjoyable new book, She 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
  
  “A magnificent work...Journalist Zimmer masterfully blends exciting storytelling with first-rate science reporting. His book is as engrossing as it is enlightening.”
  —Publishers Weekly (starred review) 
  
  “A thoroughly enchanting tour of big questions, oddball ideas, and dazzling accomplishments of researchers searching to explain, manipulate, and alter inheritance.”
  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A wide-ranging and eye-opening inquiry into the way heredity shapes our species.” 
—Booklist (starred review)

“Zimmer’s latest offers a comprehensive look at all aspects of heredity in readable and accessible text for anyone interested in the topic.”
—Library Journal

“This massive, multifaceted account of heredity's history and possible future illuminates the subject as something much more complex than genes passed from generation to generation.”
—Shelf Awareness

“A story filled with palace intrigue and breathtaking innovation.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine

"This is clearly Zimmer’s best book. It’s an opus in which he goes through the entire history of genetics and epigenetics, and writes about getting his own genome sequenced too. 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

"A rich and…