Mutants by Armand Marie Leroi

I must confess that I originally wrote this review for a biology project, but I liked the book enough to share it with you. That means you must read it. 

     This summer, I was walking around in a bookstore in England. I was poking around the bestsellers section and, quite by chance, stumbled on Mutants. The British cover instantly grabbed my attention- it sported an X-ray of a six-fingered hand. Winner of the Guardian First Book Award. Inspiration for a television series. Can't be too bad.
As I started reading it, I instantly noticed the vivid (sometimes too vivid) medical photography used as evidence and illustration. Each chapter covered a few related mutations (limb-disorders, for example) and Leroi dug up photographs, specimen exhibits, and photos of skeletons as he explained the disorders.
First, he began with an explanation of the history of mutants as it is known to scientific historians. Italian monsters, condemned by the church. French conjoined twins who died at young age of pneumonia. Their bodies were clamored over by the glory-hunting anatomists of the Parisian scientific scene of the time. I was actually surprised at how detailed Leroi's knowledge was of his predecessors' research. I had no idea that specific accounts were kept of each dissection, allowing modern scientists to build off of their ideas (or laugh perniciously at some of their more outlandish schemes). The book's description of the European life at the time is bleak and hauntingly romantic. Circus freaks and giantism-afflicted thugs were tracked down and questioned, sometimes brutally or to great extents.  Historical accounts are displayed and analyzed with a dry wit in each chapter. 

The chapter on cretins, and achondroplasia, dwarfism, was especially rife with history. European explorers' accounts are perused for details of their often-made-up travels in Africa, South America, and more fantastical places that no one else had ever seen. Tales of short (and tall) people abound. Leroi also includes the account of the Ovitz family, below, and their horrific capture by the Nazis during WWII. Joseph Mengele experimented quite brutally on them; luckily, they were saved in the liberation. 

I learned a huge amount from this book. I've always been interested in mutations and genetics, so it was quite fascinating to read of the specific genes that in each case produced such spectacular mutations. The homeobox genes, for example- I had no idea they existed, but Leroi provides an amazing overview of their substantial impact on mutations. I still have one question, though, that the book never really answered. Why aren't we all walking around with a few extra limbs(chapter IV), a conjoined twin (chapter II), and bones that keep growing until they prevent breathing and movement(chapter V)? If the human DNA is so fragile, and just one mutation is enough to cause gargantuan problems, why are we all alive and well?

I'd give this book a 4.5- At times it's a bit stuffily written, but overall it's amazing and the pictures really give it some ooomph.