Avoid Boring People - Lessons from a Life in Science

In this memoir, Watson shows by example how to get to the top and stay there. Spanning his boyhood interest in birds to his resignation from Harvard University in 1976 to his leadership of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Watson’s reminiscences encompass his claim to fame—cocredit for deducing DNA’s structure in 1953––but focus on his ambition and his conduct of academic politics. He exhibits candor and indulges in gossip, qualities that contributed to the controversy surrounding his account of the DNA breakthrough (The Double Helix,1968) and that enliven this example of the academic memoir, not a genre renowned for excitement. Through arch character sketches, light self-deprecation, and a comic penchant for appraising the behavior and physique of the human female, Watson swings between his scientific aims and the resistance he perceived in Harvard’s biology department to molecular genetics. Following each chapter, he appends “manners” derived from his experiences, which in the aggregate amount to making one’s mark early and demanding commensurate perks thereafter. In angular and opinionated prose, Watson proves as engaging as ever.