Neanderthal Man In Search Of Lost Genomes

Svante Pääbo's memoir that is mainly about the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome. I found the technical details that are present to be most interesting. The author's honesty also gives an interesting look into top tier competitive life science. Imagine being so prominent in your field that you can, on the one hand, run down the journals Nature and Science as being too eager to publish half-baked work, and, on the other hand, call the editors of Nature and Science to pre-announce and promote your upcoming work. Overall, it's well worth reading. I did find the details of the author's sexual proclivities to be especially uninteresting.

A pretty interesting look behind the scenes of how the genomes of the Neanderthal and the Denisova hominin have been sequenced, I really liked how they thought about patenting some testing for Neanderthal alleles in modern humans but ultimately it wasn't done because some people said they wouldn't stand for it. Following the (scientific) biography of Pääbo was fun as well. But I fear not too many people will have fun with the book, as the scientific details given are great if you're from the field. I guess if you don't have any training in molecular biology/population genetics and paleoanthropology it might be a bit hard to swallow.

Recommended for: For anyone working in /interested in the details of molecular biology, population genetics, evolutionary biology or anthropology.