Nicholas Harberd

A book in which the author manages to share his feelings for nature and his family, and his passion for science, in particular plant genetics. He tells of his excitement and doubt relating to his work, the inspiration and perspiration of scientific method, and some of his personal philosophies, with an interlinking narrative around one particular wild plant of the same species that he uses in the lab.

Sadly, this promising-sounding title was a bust. The book consists of extremely technical details of how particular genetic expressions and proteins affect plant growth, interspersed with stream-of-consciousness meanderings about the author's day-to-day experiences with plants. The contrast between the two was not interesting or insightful, and despite Halberd's efforts did not give me a sense of science and everyday life existing side-by-side; it gave me a sense that he took a personal show more journal and a lab notebook, threw the sentences from each into the air, and put them back together in an entirely arbitrary order. show less

Long periods of descriptive writing interspersed with the action: How genes effect growth of plants and how we discover these facts.

Media Type:Book. SUBJECT: 1. Nature -- Plants 2. Plants - General 3. Plant genetics 4. Nature -- Ecology