Matt Ridley does an excellent job telling the story of our Genome by selecting one characteristic from each chromosome and exploring in depth what it may imply about our genes. Granted this was written 17 years ago, but I still managed to gain a lot of insights into the cutting-edge applications of gene therapy. The book serves as a great introduction for those not familiar with the field and would like to take a stab at it. And though I didn't agree with all of his viewpoints, I had to give him credit for providing strong arguments on the positions he held. Some of the more shocking chapters, such as the "battle of the sexes" between genes and the history of eugenics, are things that really stand out in my mind, elevating this book from being a simple outline stuck in its time, to a classic of scientific writing.
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