This collection of 24 essays is a perfect introduction to the world of Lewis Thomas. Topics ranging from the riddle of smelling to nuclear proliferation carry the gentle, unassuming persuasiveness that characterizes the author's work. Here we are also introduced to the concerns that have distinguished Thomas' literary career: the natural altruism of organisms; the inter-relatedness of all creatures; the fragility of the human species; the uneasiness of life on a threatened planet.
Lewis Thomas's fascinating observations of the quirkiness of the world's lifeforms cause the listener to ponder simultaneously a tiny organism and the workings of the cosmos. In one chapter he examines the medusa jellyfish and a sea slug, mutually parasitic and dependent on one another. Lewis says, "They remind me of the whole earth at once."
"[Thomas] manages to be poet, scientist, social critic, and Everyman, while writing with prose so clear it's like looking through a jellyfish."-Christian Science Monitor
In this partially autobiographical work, best-selling author Lewis Thomas offers insights on subjects as wide-ranging as gender differences, how it feels to be a patient, human vs. computer intelligence, the future of cancer research, and the longevity of the planet-interspersing all with charming anecdotes about his family, his colleagues and himself.
Whether he is discussing our origins as archaebacteria or the politics of trench warfare, physician-scientist Lewis Thomas is always insightful and exuberantly engaged in his world. This collection of essays deals with everything from AIDS to ozone depletion, and reveals the author's clear thinking and his ability to cut through the fog of modern problems.
In The Lives of a Cell, Dr. Thomas opens up to the listener a universe of knowledge and perception that is perhaps not wholly unfamiliar to the research scientist; but the world he explores is one of men and women too, a world of complex interrelationships, old ironies, peculiar powers, and intricate languages that give identity to the alienated, direction to the dependent. The Lives of a Cell offers a subtle, bold vision of humankind and the world around us-a sense of what gives life-from a writer who seems to draw grace and strength from the very substance of his subject, a man of wit and imagination who takes pleasure in and gives meaning to nearly everything he beholds.
