Review: The medusa and the snail
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsThis second collection of short pieces by the President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center will bring joy to those who delighted in Lives of a Cell. The title essay concerns a jellyfish (the medusa) and a sea slug (the snail) who live in happy symbiosis in the Bay of Naples. Their ability to find each other is Thomas' springboard for a discussion of the notions of ""self"" and ""other""--of biochemical recognition whether manifest in attachments between discrete organisms or in the distinction between foreign and self in the immune system. The medusa-snail story is a particularly extraordinary tale of a mature jellyfish engulfing a tiny newly-hatched slug--only to be devoured bit by bit until the snail dominates and the jellyfish is reduced to a round ""successfuly edited parasite"" affixed to the skin near the snail's mouth. Thomas' unexpected turns of phrase and love of words and their origins is revealed again and again in essays ranging in subject from our present zeal for dying gracefully to how-not-to-choose students for medical schools. The celebrated essay ""On Transcendental Metaworry"" --in which Thomas wryly dispatches the whole kit and kaboodle of instant paths to enlightenment--is a rondo of variants of the origins of ""worry."" To be sure, there are dispensable pieces, but this is to quibble. Read Thomas for his style--often disarmingly simple, even colloquial--and the wit and insight into life and medicine his writing embodies.
Review: Medusa and the Snail, The
User Review - John Williams - GoodreadsI read this book as part of a committment to reread books in my library in between reading new books. This book contains a series of short essays written by the late Lewis Thomas who was a physician ... Read full review
Review: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
User Review - Emma - GoodreadsLove this one. Some evolutionary hogwash, but the essays are still really good. Read full review
Review: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
User Review - Jane - GoodreadsThis is a book that I will cherish. If asked what book I'd choose if I were in isolation The Medusa and the Snail would be a fierce contender for MVP. Read full review
Review: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
User Review - Elise - GoodreadsLewis Thomas has a way of making science understandable and attractive to the "lay" scientist. Barring his evolutionary worldview, he is spot on. Read full review
Review: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
User Review - Kevin - GoodreadsEntertaining musing from a scientist. Not necessarily just on your traditional scienctific subjects either. Takes on different perspective on a range of ideas. Seems to be a smattering of random ... Read full review
Review: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
User Review - Michelle Vaughn - GoodreadsLewis Thomas looks at the world with a very specific, optimistic view--one which is, as if magically, backed up by biology, ecology, medicine, and other various sciences--and transmits this view with a very precise style of writing, making his essays altogether pleasures to read. Read full review
Review: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
User Review - GoodreadsLewis Thomas looks at the world with a very specific, optimistic view--one which is, as if magically, backed up by biology, ecology, medicine, and other various sciences--and transmits this view with a very precise style of writing, making his essays altogether pleasures to read.
Review: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
User Review - Amblingbooks.com - Goodreads"[Thomas] manages to be poet, scientist, social critic, and Everyman, while writing with prose so clear it's like looking through a jellyfish." Christian Science Monitor Listen to The Medusa and the Snail on your iPhone, desktop, or smartphone. Read full review
Review: The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
User Review - GoodreadsThe snail of the title essay: http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sci... "The anemones who live on the shells of crabs are precisely finicky; so are the crabs. Only a single species of anemone will find ...
