5 must-read biography books like Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane

Cover of Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane

Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

By: Nick Lane

4.04

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

What brings the Earth to life, and our own lives to an end? For decades, biology has been domina…

"Almost the only thing we know for sure about consciousness is that it is, so to speak, soluble in ether, chloroform and a variety of other solvents ..."

-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

"Core metabolism has changed little in part because it was never powered down in its four-billion-year history. The genes are custodians of this flame, but without the flame life is – dead."

-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

"Keen to progress the work on photosynthesis, Lawrence hired Melvin Calvin, a colleague from the Manhattan Project, immediately after the war. The story has it that on the day of the Japanese surrender Lawrence told Calvin that ‘Now is the time to do something useful with radioactive carbon."

-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

"Putting terms aside, we’ll see that the ancient biosynthetic Krebs cycle was fixing CO2 a billion years before rubisco and the evolution of photosynthesis in the cyanobacterial ancestors of plant chloroplasts. When it first emerged, the reverse Krebs cycle had little to do with energy generation, instead providing the carbon skeletons needed for biosynthesis. This perspective elucidates the deep metabolism of cells, yet it is still largely missing from the more medically oriented textbooks. It’s a serious omission."

-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

If you liked the biography plot in Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane , here is a list of 5 books like this:

Cover of I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong

1. I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

By: Ed Yong

4.18

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Ma… read more

Similar categories in Ed Yong's I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • health
  • biology
  • evolution
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • audiobook
"I was struck by how different everything seemed with microbes in mind."

-Ed Yong, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

"The brutal contract of natural selection ensures that if one partner is unnecessary, it gets dumped."

-Ed Yong, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

"As palaeontologist Andrew Knoll once said, "Animals might be evolution's icing, but bacteria are really the cake."

-Ed Yong, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

"There’s a popular saying among doctors: There’s no such thing as alternative medicine; if it works, it’s just called medicine."

-Ed Yong, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

2. Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology

By: Jim Al-Khalili , Johnjoe McFadden

4.67

Format: 40 pages, Hardcover

New York TimesBestseller and an Amazon Best Science Book of 2015 Life is the most extraordinary phe… read more

Similar categories in Jim Al-Khalili's Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

Cover of Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will by Robert M. Sapolsky

3. Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

By: Robert M. Sapolsky

4.25

Format: 528 pages, Hardcover

One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the … read more

Similar categories in Robert M. Sapolsky's Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • audiobook
  • biology
  • evolution
  • nonfiction
  • science
"I’m being diplomatic. Many readers will know of the “replication crisis"

-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

"Obviously, imposing these classifications on determinism, free will, and moral responsibility is wildly simplified. A key simplification is pretending that most people have clean “yes"

-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

"You cannot decide all the sensory stimuli in your environment, your hormone levels this morning, whether something traumatic happened to you in the past, the socioeconomic status of your parents, you…"

-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

Cover of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness by Anil Seth

4. Being You: A New Science of Consciousness

By: Anil Seth

4.10

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Being You is not as simple as it sounds. Somehow, within each of our brains, billions of neurons wo… read more

Similar categories in Anil Seth's Being You: A New Science of Consciousness book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • biology
  • nonfiction
  • science
  • audiobook
Cover of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains by Max Solomon Bennett

5. A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains

By: Max Solomon Bennett

4.46

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

Equal parts Sapiens , Behave, and Superintelligence , but wholly original in scope, A Brief History… read more

Similar categories in Max Solomon Bennett's A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • biology
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • science
Cover of The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us by Steve Brusatte

6. The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us

By: Steve Brusatte

4.38

Format: 528 pages, Hardcover

In his acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, American paleontologist Steve Brusa… read more

Similar categories in Steve Brusatte's The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • history
  • biology
  • evolution
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • audiobook
Cover of Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday

7. Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds

By: Thomas Halliday

4.13

Format: 385 pages, Hardcover

A stirring, eye-opening journey into deep time, from the Ice Age to the first appearance of microb… read more

Similar categories in Thomas Halliday's Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • history
  • biology
  • evolution
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • audiobook
"In their own sweepstake fashion, hippopotamuses will reach Malta, Sicily and Crete over the water, and become dwarfed to tiny forms. In many islands, dwarf elephants will roam. With a single, large n…"

-Thomas Halliday, Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds

"To talk of the first humans is to hammer a signpost into an ancient river saying 'no humans beyond this point', no matter the ever flowing stream around it's base. There is nothing essential to human…"

-Thomas Halliday, Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds

Cover of The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee

8. The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

By: Siddhartha Mukherjee

4.28

Format: 473 pages, Hardcover

Winner of the 2023 PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences and the 2023 Chautauq… read more

Similar categories in Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • history
  • health
  • biology
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • audiobook
Cover of Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane

9. Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

By: Nick Lane

4.04

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

What brings the Earth to life, and our own lives to an end? For decades, biology has been domina… read more

Similar categories in Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • history
  • biography
  • health
  • biology
  • evolution
  • chemistry
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • audiobook
"Almost the only thing we know for sure about consciousness is that it is, so to speak, soluble in ether, chloroform and a variety of other solvents ..."

-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

"Core metabolism has changed little in part because it was never powered down in its four-billion-year history. The genes are custodians of this flame, but without the flame life is – dead."

-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

"Keen to progress the work on photosynthesis, Lawrence hired Melvin Calvin, a colleague from the Manhattan Project, immediately after the war. The story has it that on the day of the Japanese surrende…"

-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

"Putting terms aside, we’ll see that the ancient biosynthetic Krebs cycle was fixing CO2 a billion years before rubisco and the evolution of photosynthesis in the cyanobacterial ancestors of plant chl…"

-Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

Cover of Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions by Sabine Hossenfelder

10. Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

By: Sabine Hossenfelder

3.92

Format: 269 pages, Kindle Edition

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “An informed and entertaining guide to what science can and cannot t… read more

Similar categories in Sabine Hossenfelder's Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"Sometimes the only scientific answer we can give is 'We don't know."

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

"Today I think they don't teach the principle of least action in school because then everybody would go and study physics."

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

"There are no exact metaphors, not for quantum mechanics and not for anything else, because if they were exact, they wouldn't be metaphors."

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

"Instead of thinking of ourselves as selecting possible futures, I suggest we remain curious about what's to come and strive to learn more about ourselves and the universe we inhabit."

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

Cover of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Quanta and Fields by Sean Carroll

11. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Quanta and Fields

By: Sean Carroll

4.18

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

In the second book of this already internationally acclaimed series, Sean Carroll, the most trusted… read more

Similar categories in Sean Carroll's The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Quanta and Fields book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • nonfiction
  • science
Cover of Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives by Mark Miodownik

12. Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives

By: Mark Miodownik

4.12

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

This fascinating new book by the bestselling scientist and engineer Mark Miodownik is an expert tou… read more

Similar categories in Mark Miodownik's Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • history
  • chemistry
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • audiobook
Cover of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion by Sean Carroll

13. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion

By: Sean Carroll

3.96

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

The most trusted explainer of the most mind-boggling concepts pulls back the veil of mystery that h… read more

Similar categories in Sean Carroll's The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
Cover of The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quammen

14. The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

By: David Quammen

3.98

Format: 480 pages, Hardcover

Science writer David Quammen explains how recent discoveries in molecular biology can change our un… read more

Similar categories in David Quammen's The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • history
  • biography
  • biology
  • evolution
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • audiobook
Cover of Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality by Venki Ramakrishnan

15. Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality

By: Venki Ramakrishnan

4.08

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

"Utterly fascinating." —Bill Bryson A groundbreaking exploration of the science of why and how we a… read more

Similar categories in Venki Ramakrishnan's Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • audiobook
  • health
  • biology
  • nonfiction
  • science
Cover of Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome by Venki Ramakrishnan

16. Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome

By: Venki Ramakrishnan

4.00

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

Everyone has heard of DNA. But by itself, DNA is just an inert blueprint for life. It is the riboso… read more

Similar categories in Venki Ramakrishnan's Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • history
  • biography
  • biology
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"When we have a clear goal in mind, we think we are struggling to reach a summit. But there is no summit. When we get there, we realize we have just climbed a foothill, and there is an endless series …"

-Venki Ramakrishnan, Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome

Cover of The Primacy of Doubt: From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand Our Chaotic World by Tim Palmer

17. The Primacy of Doubt: From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand Our Chaotic World

By: Tim Palmer

3.99

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

“Quite possibly the best popular science book I’ve ever read” ( Popular Science ) shows how the too… read more

Similar categories in Tim Palmer's The Primacy of Doubt: From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand Our Chaotic World book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • nonfiction
  • science
Cover of Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps by Seirian Sumner

18. Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps

By: Seirian Sumner

3.91

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

“A book that draws us in to the strange beauty of what we so often run away from.” — Robin Ince, au… read more

Similar categories in Seirian Sumner's Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • audiobook
  • biology
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • science
Cover of The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets by Thomas R. Cech

19. The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets

By: Thomas R. Cech

4.37

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A Nobel Prize–winning scientist reveals biology’s most transformative achievements in decades―a Dou… read more

Similar categories in Thomas R. Cech's The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • history
  • biology
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • science
Cover of How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology by Philip Ball

20. How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology

By: Philip Ball

4.28

Format: 552 pages, Hardcover

A cutting-edge new vision of biology that will revise our concept of what life itself is, how to en… read more

Similar categories in Philip Ball's How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • biography
  • biology
  • nonfiction
  • nature
  • audiobook
"The growth and maintenance of living things like us is a delicate (but also robust) dance of cause and effect, cascading up and down the hierarchy of scales in space and time. This leads to that, but…"

-Philip Ball, How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology

"I don’t anticipate a consensus any time soon on the question of how to define life, but it seems to me that cognition provides a much better, more apt way to talk about it than invoking more passive …"

-Philip Ball, How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology

Cover of The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology by Amy   Webb

21. The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology

By: Amy Webb

3.95

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

Named one of The New Yorker's BEST BOOKS OF 2022 SO FAR The next frontier in technology is inside … read more

Similar categories in Amy Webb's The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology book and Nick Lane's Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

  • science
  • history
  • biography
  • biology
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook

16 must-read audiobook books like Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane

Transform Your Habits

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Ed Yong

4.18

Transform Your Habits

Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

Robert M. Sapolsky

4.25

Transform Your Habits

Being You: A New Science of Consciousness

Anil Seth

4.10

Transform Your Habits

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us

Steve Brusatte

4.38

View all the books

20 best-selling audiobook books like The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Transform Your Habits

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Ed Yong

4.18

Transform Your Habits

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

Siddharth Kara

4.37

Transform Your Habits

Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

Robert M. Sapolsky

4.25

Transform Your Habits

Immune: a Journey into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive

Philipp Dettmer

4.59

View all the books

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