Saturday, May 17, 2008

Reading "Microcosm"

I'm on page 73 of Microcosm, Carl Zimmer's account of E. coli's role in the development of modern biology. So far, it's the most crisply written and informative science book I've read in a long time, and I've been reading quite a few good ones. It does not condescend, it does not wave its hands when things get more technical. No superfluous "local color" digressions (I don't really need irrelevant anecdotes from some scientist's life). Yet, the writing is lively and almost humorous, as life (ours or E. coli's) is pretty funny in its contradictions, kludges, and amazingly successful hacks.

1 comment:

steve said...

another book for the pile!

Your recommendations are always good