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Published Mar 2024
320 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
A groundbreaking exploration of the science of aging and mortality—from Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan
The knowledge of death is so terrifying that we live most of our lives in denial of it. Throughout human history—from the immortal afterlife of Judeo-Christian thought to the cycle of reincarnation posited by many Eastern religions—we have developed beliefs that allow us to avoid recognizing its finality. One of the most difficult moments of childhood must be when each of us first realizes that not only we but all our loved ones will die—and there is nothing we can do about it.
Or at least, there hasn't been. Today, we are living through a revolution in biology. Giant strides are being made in understanding why we age—and why some species live longer than others. Could we eventually cheat disease and death and live for a very long time, possibly many times our current lifespan?
Venki Ramakrishnan, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and former president of the Royal Society, takes us on a riveting journey to the frontiers of biology, asking whether we must be mortal. Covering the recent breakthroughs in scientific research, he examines the cutting edge of efforts to extend lifespan by altering our physiology. But might death serve a necessary biological purpose? What are the social and ethical costs of attempting to live forever?
Why We Die is a narrative of uncommon insight and beauty from one of our leading public intellectuals.
"[Ramakrishnan] has a knack for making biology accessible, and he brings a searching philosophical sensibility when considering the wisdom of seeking to extend life. ... The result is a strikingly pensive exploration of how bodies decline and whether efforts to slow that process are worth the cost." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Ramakrishnan is a fine writer, so readers will enjoy his expert if intensely detailed overview of genetics and evolution as it applies to aging...Fascinating...An illuminating account of the science of life extension with a more critical eye than most." —Kirkus Reviews
"Enthralling and eminently accessible. ... [Ramakrishnan] probes the essential ethical question that runs through it all. Even if we could live forever, should we?" —Bookseller (London)
"It is rare to find a book that manages to combine science, politics, memoir, and medicine with ease, grace, and lucidity. Ramakrishnan's book, which comes at a time when the hype and hope around immortality has ascended to a febrile pitch, achieves precisely all of this, while taking readers on an incredible journey that encompasses the knowns and many unknowns that surround the science, mystery, and metaphysics of death and dying. This is a book for many generations, about many generations." —Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Emperor of All Maladies and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Gene
"For a book about death, Venki Ramakrishnan's Why We Die is joyfully alive. The story he tells is one of aging and death, but along the way he covers a huge range of biology, evolution, genetics, chemistry, and medicine. This is science writing at its finest: readable, authoritative, and impactful. The vignettes of important discoveries and the scientists that made them enliven the text, and show the personal side of the science of aging. As a scientist who studies dead things, this book gave me a whole new perspective on that one inevitable thing in every organism's life." —Steve Brusatte, professor and paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh and New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
"Utterly fascinating. Venki Ramakrishnan's ability to take the most challenging subjects and make them clear, enthralling and packed with insights fills me with awe." —Bill Bryson, New York Times bestselling author of The Body
"This riveting and revealing book is for all of us who wonder whether aging and mortality are the next frontiers for human science to cross. Has the first person destined to live to two hundred already been born? Can we really extend our longevity further and further until … until what? Immortality? Why We Die takes us on a thrilling ride through the science of aging. Meet naked mole rats, lugworms, budding yeast and creepy human charlatans on the way. Venki Ramakrishnan has an extraordinary gift for explaining science with clarity, wit, and enviably entertaining narrative flair. A must read." —Stephen Fry, comedian, actor, writer
This information about Why We Die was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Venki Ramakrishnan shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for uncovering the structure of the ribosome. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Venki runs the Ramakrishnan Lab at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. From 2015 to 2020, he served as president of the Royal Society, one of the world's oldest scientific organizations. He is the author of the frank scientific memoir Gene Machine.
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