- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (Feb 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0375412832
- ISBN-13: 978-0375412837
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,199,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
“The chase for the double-helical structure of DNA was an adventure story in the best sense. First, there was a pot of scientific gold to be found—possibly very soon. Second, among the explorers who raced to find it, there was much bravado, unexpected lapses of reason, and painful acceptances of the fates not going well. The early 1950s were not times to be cautious but rather to run fast whenever a path opened up—nuggets of gold might be lying exposed over the next hill. As one of the winners with a fortune much, much bigger than I ever dared hope for, I could not stop moving. There was more genetic loot to be located, and not joining in the further hunt would make me feel old.” —from the preface
Immediately following the revolutionary discovery of the structure of DNA by James D. Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, the world of molecular biology was caught up in a gold rush. The goal: to uncover the secrets of life the newly elucidated molecule promised to reveal. Genes, Girls, and Gamow is James Watson’s report on the amazing aftermath of the DNA breakthrough, picking up where his now-classic memoir The Double Helix leaves off.
Here are the collaborations and collisions of giants, not only Watson and Crick themselves, but also legions of others, including Linus Pauling (the greatest chemist of the day), Richard Feynman (the bongo-playing cynosure of Caltech), and especially George Gamow, the bearlike, whiskey-wielding Russian physicist, who had turned his formidable intellect to the field of genetics; with Gamow—an irrepressible prankster to boot—Watson would found the legendary RNA-Tie Club.
But Watson––at twenty-five already the winner of genetic research’s greatest jackpot––is obsessed with another goal as well: to find love, and a wife equal to his unexpected fame. As he and an international cast of roguish young colleagues do important research they also compare notes and share complaints on the scarcity of eligible mates. And amid the feverish search for the role of the still mysterious RNA molecule, Watson’s thoughts are seldom far from the supreme object of his affections, an enthralling Swarthmore coed named Christa, the daughter of the celebrated Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr.
Part scientific apprenticeship, part sentimental education, Genes, Girls, and Gamow is a penetrating revelation of how great science is accomplished. It is also a charmingly candid account of one young man’s full range of ambitions.
Immediately following the revolutionary discovery of the structure of DNA by James D. Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, the world of molecular biology was caught up in a gold rush. The goal: to uncover the secrets of life the newly elucidated molecule promised to reveal. Genes, Girls, and Gamow is James Watson’s report on the amazing aftermath of the DNA breakthrough, picking up where his now-classic memoir The Double Helix leaves off.
Here are the collaborations and collisions of giants, not only Watson and Crick themselves, but also legions of others, including Linus Pauling (the greatest chemist of the day), Richard Feynman (the bongo-playing cynosure of Caltech), and especially George Gamow, the bearlike, whiskey-wielding Russian physicist, who had turned his formidable intellect to the field of genetics; with Gamow—an irrepressible prankster to boot—Watson would found the legendary RNA-Tie Club.
But Watson––at twenty-five already the winner of genetic research’s greatest jackpot––is obsessed with another goal as well: to find love, and a wife equal to his unexpected fame. As he and an international cast of roguish young colleagues do important research they also compare notes and share complaints on the scarcity of eligible mates. And amid the feverish search for the role of the still mysterious RNA molecule, Watson’s thoughts are seldom far from the supreme object of his affections, an enthralling Swarthmore coed named Christa, the daughter of the celebrated Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr.
Part scientific apprenticeship, part sentimental education, Genes, Girls, and Gamow is a penetrating revelation of how great science is accomplished. It is also a charmingly candid account of one young man’s full range of ambitions.
About the Author
In 1953, while working at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helical structure of DNA. For their discovery they, with Maurice Wilkins, were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Watson was appointed to the faculty at Harvard University in 1956. In 1968, while retaining his position at Harvard, he became director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). In 1988 he was appointed as associate
director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) to help launch the Human Genome Program. A year later he became the first director of the National Center for Human Genome Research at the NIH, a position he held until 1992. In 1994 Watson became president of CSHL, the position he holds today. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) to help launch the Human Genome Program. A year later he became the first director of the National Center for Human Genome Research at the NIH, a position he held until 1992. In 1994 Watson became president of CSHL, the position he holds today. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
Initially, when I went back to Cambridge, no one would act as if I had been away. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
Initially, when I went back to Cambridge, no one would act as if I had been away. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
One wonders why a man with such a splendid scientific intellect, generating analytical and critical thoughts when it comes to how nature works, can be so uncritical about himself. Indeed, GENES, GIRLS, AND GAMOW presents interesting cameos of the Who's Who of 20th Century science with whom Dr. James D. Watson spent some time. We are given a view filtered through his personality of how these people entertained themselves. It is somewhat written, however, like entries in a laboratory notebook.
Perhaps what Watson most candidly reveals about himself is why his life and, indeed, his public pronouncements were so punctuated with misogynisms. Man and boy, he was quite socially and sexually immature. He could get the double helix, but he had a lot of trouble getting the girl. Watson's search for the "perfect woman" is similarly grotesque. Life is short. How about a good companion who simply loves you, and you love her back, Dr. Watson?
I think that the cast of characters and author's candor in this book make it interesting and worthwhile reading. However, it ironically accomplishes in uncovering how someone who can't get the girl also doesn't want her in the laboratory. Thus it reveals that just like the notion of a "perfect woman" is a grand illusion so is the idea of a perfect scientist.
Perhaps what Watson most candidly reveals about himself is why his life and, indeed, his public pronouncements were so punctuated with misogynisms. Man and boy, he was quite socially and sexually immature. He could get the double helix, but he had a lot of trouble getting the girl. Watson's search for the "perfect woman" is similarly grotesque. Life is short. How about a good companion who simply loves you, and you love her back, Dr. Watson?
I think that the cast of characters and author's candor in this book make it interesting and worthwhile reading. However, it ironically accomplishes in uncovering how someone who can't get the girl also doesn't want her in the laboratory. Thus it reveals that just like the notion of a "perfect woman" is a grand illusion so is the idea of a perfect scientist.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is describing events which happened after those told in "Double helix" and before those described in "Avoid boring people". While "Double helix" describes the race to discover the structure of DNA, "Genes, girls & Gamow" focuses more on the life outside the lab (especially on girls), and on scientists and their personalities and personal lifes (especially on G. Gamow and P. Pauling). Still, there is enough science inside for those interested in the history of molecular biology. Furthermore, I have the impression that the book is written in a more modest way (compared to "Double helix") and still quite honest. The book contains a lot of photos and facsimiles of letters, all of which is giving the reader a better insight, and one feels closer to the actual events. I recommend this book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
18 reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Slight and boring
16 Aug 2002
Format:Hardcover
The Double Helix is a classic (even if it was a rather hyped up embellishment of the way it was), but this is nowhere near it in quality. One suspects that any publisher would have leapt at a chance to publish JDWs "next" book, after all the Double Helix must have made everyone concerned rich. Big mistake - poor Knopf. This is a rather bizarre book really - mainly all rather painful accounts of JDWs awkward contacts with girls and superficial accounts of various interactions with often famous scientists. The narrative thread is completely aimless and, frankly, rather boring. Never really do you get a real feel of what it was actually JDW and his colleagues were doing day to day to earn their salaries. There are also some somewhat awkward moments when JDW tries to make up for criticisms of the Double Helix (being nice about Rosalind Franklin and saying it was not him who coined the phrase "I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood" and so on). The book meanders through the middle fifties until JDW gets his job at Harvard (quite why anyone would give him a job is rather beyond the reader to understand when reading about his endless perigrinations), but I think we can say that Watson has a lot more to give than this book indicates. Completely unlike Francois Jacob's account of his life this book gives very little away about the author's inner life. His love for Christa Mayr is all rather embarrassing and very sophomoric. It makes you almost feel more sorry for her. The book does not even finish well. It just fizzles out. A final chapter of postcript catches up to the late sixties.
I am very interested in this material, but this is a poor book by anyone's standards. I am not really blaming Watson. Knopf published the book and they were foolish enough to do so. It is all rather a shame as JDW is a seminal figure and the book perhaps could have been another tour de force.
28 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Life After the Discovery of the Double Helix
14 Aug 2002
Format:Hardcover
I was a research fellow in CalTech's Kerckhoff Laboratories of Biology when Jim Watson arrived in the autumn of 1953 to join us as a research fellow. Everyone was curious about the person who had come from nowhere to make, along with Francis Crick, one of the great discoveries of the twentieth century. I found him to be very bright, friendly, and bubbling with ideas. Genes, Girls, and Gamow describes the ferment in biology at that time, and his attempts to apply intuition to the problem of how information in DNA translates into proteins. But much of the book is a candid account of his search for the perfect girl to marry. We go through his attempts to woo a string of CalTech girls - all failures. I once suggested to a pretty, intelligent lab assistant that he would be a good catch, since he was sure to get a Nobel prize. She gave me a look that would have frozen melted steel, so I kept silent after that. The account of his pursuit of undergraduate student Christa Mayr is almost painful to read, since he loves her, but she is only lukewarm. It all comes out well, however, when he finally finds the girl of his deams. The third part of the book's title, the physicist George Gamow, flits in and out of the story in the same way that he would appear at CalTech and then disappear. The book reminds me a bit of The Diary of Samuel Pepys, since we read where Watson went, with whom, and what they discussed. If you would like to read an insider story of the way that much of our current biology developed explosively in the 1950's, this story gives you a month by month diary. Jim Watson's candor makes it fascinating reading.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
A Science Giant's Informal Memoir
19 Feb 2002
Format:Hardcover
James D. Watson produced a delightful and frequently hilarious book, _The Double Helix_, his 1968 account of how he and Francis Crick and their fellow researchers managed to jimmy molecular models into just the right positions to reveal the structure of the huge molecule DNA. It was one of the greatest discoveries science had ever made, announced in 1953 and gaining the Nobel Prize in 1962. Watson's book wonderfully well recounts the race to get the structure down, and it was a classic scientific memoir exciting enough to make it a best seller. Watson was only 25 years old when DNA was cracked, and besides biochemistry, he had other things on his mind. Girls. Thus he has produced _Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix_ (Knopf) to tell what happened to him after his epochal success. "I felt the need to have more than the double helix below my belt before winning the prize. I did not want to be overpraised for what was not very difficult science." That sort of modesty pervades his book.
Although genes get the first mention in the title, and there is plenty of science here, the chief part of the memoir is devoted to "girls," always on Watson's mind. It is amusing that a scientist who will be remembered forever for his monumental discovery often sounds like a confused loveless teenager seeking female solace. He frets when a girlfriend doesn't write, for instance, and stumbles in sexual endeavors. The final part of the title refers to George Gamow, an amazing physicist who pops up all over American science in the forties and fifties. His heavy drinking ("his idea of a tall drink was a tall glass completely filled with whiskey") and uproarious pranks made him disliked by many in the staid science world, but Watson reflects, "His role was to have a good time no matter the consequences to the ethos of science." Pranks were not only Gamow's stock in trade; the book is surprisingly full of them, perpetuated sometimes in official journals, sometimes by Watson, sometimes against Watson. He writes about the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, "I deeply offended several old-timers by giving lectures in unlaced tennis shoes and wearing my floppy hat at night as well as during the day. My water pistol was also judged inappropriate, even though I generally restricted its aim to a pretty girl from the South taking invertebrate lab work too seriously."
It is great fun to see giants of science, like Feynman, Crick, and Delbruck, wander through these pages, usually in informal style. It is also interesting to see the international nature of serious scientific effort, with competition that is generally friendly. Watson is a breezy writer; the events described here, especially the details of his personal life, have none of the importance of the discovery of the double helix, and his amused and tolerant attitude comes forth on each page. It is a fond look back at a happy, busy life.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
