Tag: Walter Isaacson

Upcoming book release: ‘The Code Breaker’ by Walter Isaacson

‘The Code Breaker’ by Walter Isaacson will be released on Tuesday, March 9, 2021. Photo: amazon

Walter Isaacson, University Professor of History at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chairman of CNN, and editor of Time magazine. He is the author of “Leonardo da Vinci;” “Steve Jobs;” “Einstein: His Life and Universe;” “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life;” and “Kissinger: A Biography.” He is also the coauthor of “The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made.” His new book “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race,” is a gripping account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies. It will be released Tuesday, March 9, 2021. Excerpt available here. (amazon, 2021)

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled “The Double Helix” on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls did not become scientists, she decided she would.

Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned ​a curiosity ​of nature into an invention that will transform humanity: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.

The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code.

After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with the moral issues that come along with it and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020. Her story is a thrilling detective tale that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species.

Goodreads’ Most Anticipated Books of 2021

Andy Weir’s ‘Project Hail Mary’ is one of Goodreads’ Most Anticipated Books of 2021. It will be released on May 4. Photo: amazon

The new year brings exciting new titles for readers of all genres. These are the highlights of Goodreads’ The Most Anticipated Books of 2021. The full list is available online.

Fiction: “The Paris Library” by Janet Skeslien Charles – release date: February 9
In Paris, 1939, young Odile Souchet is enjoying her dream job at the American Library in Paris. But when the Nazis roll in, things get real dark, real fast. Odile and her fellow librarians join the Resistance. Forty-some years later, a lonely teenager in Montana befriends her elderly neighbor, who has a story to tell

Mystery & Thriller: “Survive the Night” by Riley Sager – release date: July 6
The new thriller from pseudonymous superstar Riley Sager (Final Girls), “Survive the Night” is set in the early 1990s, back before smartphones could resolve plot points instantly. College student Charlie Jordan is sharing a ride back to Ohio with a guy who may or may not be a serial killer. Calling for help would require a pay phone. Running away would require a cruising speed less than 55 mph.

Fantasy and Science Fiction: “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir – release date: May 4
Andy Weir, author of “The Martian,” returns to space with the story of a last-ditch, fat-chance effort to save Earth from an extinction-level event. Astronaut Ryland Grace is on his own, millions of miles from home, having just awoken from a long cryogenic sleep. Using a patchwork spaceship, two corpses, and his very fuzzy memory, he is going to have to improvise.

Nonfiction: “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race” by Walter Isaacson – release date: Mary 9
Biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her collaborators pioneered the world-changing genetic engineering technology known as CRISPR, which opens an entirely new universe of medical miracles and serious ethical questions. Biographer Walter Isaacson, author of previous tomes on Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs, turns his gaze to the world of life science and 21st-century genetics.

Young Adult: “Rule of Wolves” by Leigh Bardugo – release date: March 30
From the celebrated author of Ninth House, winner of a 2019 Goodreads Choice Award, “Rule of Wolves” returns readers to the land of Fjerda, where a king, a general, and a spy must work together to forge a new future. Bonus trivia: Several of author Leigh Bardugo’s previous works have already been optioned for film and TV.

Romance: “Act Your Age, Eve Brown” by Talia Hibbert – release date: March 9
Fans of Talia Hibbert’s series The Brown Sisters will be happy to hear a new story is coming, this one dedicated to Eve—invariably described as the flightiest of the sisters. The good news: Eve has found a guy. The bad news: She just hit him with her car. The weird news: He is now her boss.

Television adaptation: ‘Einstein: His Life and Universe’ by Walter Isaacson

einsteinlife
The television adaptation of Walter Isaacson’s ‘Einstein: His Life and Universe’ premieres on Tuesday April 25, 2017. Photo: Barnes & Noble

 

Walter Isaacson is a writer, journalist, the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, the chairman and CEO of CNN and Managing Editor of Time. As an author, he has written biographies of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Henry Kissinger. His best-selling biography of Albert Einstein, “Einstein: His Life and Universe” has been adapted into a ten-episode series for National Geographic making it the network’s first scripted series. It premieres on Tuesday April 25 and is executive produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and stars Johnny Flynn as a young Einstein, Emily Watson as his second wife and Geoffrey Rush as the older Einstein. This series takes viewers beyond the academic life of Einstein and focuses on his struggles to be a good husband and father and a man of principle during an era of global unrest.

According to Amazon, in “Einstein: His Life and Universe,” the author writes about how Einstein’s scientific imagination was born out of his rebellious personality. It is the story of how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk and struggling father became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos. His success was the product of his constant questioning of conventional wisdom and an appreciation of the mundane. His work led him to embrace a lifestyle based on respect for free minds, free spirits and free individuals.