The Song of the Cell
Siddhartha Mukherjee, the physician and writer behind The Emperor of All Maladies, turns to the cell, the tiny building block that makes up every living thing. He traces the history of how scientists first saw cells in the 1600s and slowly learned how they divide, communicate, and fail, and he shows how that knowledge now powers new treatments, from cancer therapies that reprogram the immune system to advances against diabetes and heart disease. Mukherjee blends patient stories, lab history, and his own clinical experience to argue that understanding cells is the key to understanding both illness and ourselves.
What you might want to know about The Song of the Cell
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
The Pulitzer-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies tells the story of the cell, the basic unit of life and the root of nearly every disease.
Yes. Siddhartha Mukherjee also wrote The Emperor of All Maladies, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene.
Yes. Bill Gates named it among his favorite books of 2023.
The Song of the Cell was written by Siddhartha Mukherjee, published in 2022 by Scribner.
The Song of the Cell is 496 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Song of the Cell takes most readers 7 to 11 hours to finish.
The Song of the Cell is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.