Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee review – the little lives within us

A masterclass in cell function that will leave you in awe of biology

Cells build organisms from the ground up, and therefore to choose to write about them is to give oneself permission to explore almost any aspect of the living world. They are a life within a life" as Siddhartha Mukherjee puts it in his latest book, which takes advantage of that licence to offer a comprehensive account of basic biology, alongside a history of the many great minds that have helped us to see beyond widespread misconceptions to scientific truth.

This is not just about clear-cut successes: alongside the stories of diligent scientists, there are intriguing tales of the many eccentrics whose contributions were vital to the transformation of medicine. As such, this is a book filled with missteps, arguments and prejudices. It almost made me feel sorry for my scientific colleagues, painstakingly working away in labs, trusting that systematic hard work is all that is required to achieve a big breakthrough.