Product Description

`ames D. Watson looks back on his extraordinary and varied career -- from its beginnings as a schoolboy in Chicago's South Side to the day he left Harvard almost 50 years later, world-renowned as the co-discoverer of DNA -- and considers the lessons he has learnt along the way. The result is both an engagingly eccentric memoir and an insightful compendium of lessons in life for aspiring scientists. Watson's 'manners' range from those he learnt bird-watching with his father during the Great Depression ('Avoid fighting bigger boys and dogs' and 'Find a young hero to emulate') to the manners appropriate for a Nobel Prize ('Have friends close to those who rule'). He evokes his time as a graduate student in the 1940s ('Hire spunky lab helpers'); the excitement of working in DNA for the first time as well as having his first dates; his time working as a White House advisor; and at Harvard in the '70s. Avoid Boring People is a quirky, original, wise, and infuriatingly un-put-downable blend of candid anecdotes and revealing insights into the life of one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216871 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 347 pages

The Herald (Glasgow), December 12, 2007
'It's never dull.'

Review
It's never dull. (The Herald (Glasgow) )

A lively and provocative book. (Financial Times, Books of the Year )

Scientists will find the book most interesting. (Irish Times )

The story is frank, personal, revealing and sometimes entertaining. (Peter Lawrence, Literary Review )

...a deliciously detailed account of his life...Watson remains one of the most fascinating scientists of our time, as iconic in some respects as his double helix. (Nature )

Irish Times, November 22, 2007
'Scientists will find the book most interesting.'

Customer Reviews

A warm and human book
Watson's account of his life and academic career should be interesting reading both for scientists and non-scientists. There certainly are paragraphs of highly technical material, but don't let that put you off. The book is really about the lessons that Watson has learned in life more generally. It isn't his scientific achievement that stands out - impressive though that is. More engaging is his account of his growth as a person over the years. Recounted in his very concise and elegant writing style, it makes for a very warm and human book.

The worst book on science I have ever read
If you are interested in the tedium of daily life, especially the daily life of a scientific bureaucrat, read this book. Else read something (anything!) else. Very little on the amazing discovery of the structure of DNA - he already wrote a book on that which he spends many pages of this book praising - but plenty of every other tedium in this man's life.

Avoid.