title: Genome: The Autobiography of a Species In 23 Chapters
author:  Matt Ridley 
description: Science writer Matt Ridley has found a way to tell someone else's story without being accused of plagiarism. <i>Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters</i> delves deep within your body (and, to be fair, Ridley's too) looking for dirt dug up by the Human Genome Project. Each chapter pries one gene out of its chromosome and focuses on its role in our development and adult life, but also goes further, exploring the implications of genetic research and our quickly changing social attitudes toward this information. <i>Genome</i> shies away from the "tedious biochemical middle managers" that only a nerd could love and instead goes for the A-material: genes associated with cancer, intelligence, sex (of course), and more.
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  Crypto Zoologist Drake Whitton works as a genetics
  
  
  professor at Colin City College while he figures out how to
  
  
  remove the eccentric label from his name, given to him by
  
  
  his peer’s response to his last paper on the existence of the
  
  
  chupacabra. He thinks he’s found the opportunity he needs
  
  
  when a private firm asks him to dissect and analyze a new
  
  
  DNA strand, and he discovers it contains both human and
  
  
  reptilian characteristics. His plans are derailed when his car
  
  
  gets hijacked by a detective on the run, his home gets broken
  
  
  into by people from the corporation he’s been doing research
  
  
  for, and he gets seduced by the doctor assigned to care for
  
  
  the hijacker.
  
  
  Doctor Ailean Carmichael never expects to find a mate, let
  
  
  alone a human one, but he’s willing to take what Fate gives
  
  
  him. After all, not all humans are like his late foster parents,
  
  
  right? And an orphaned, exiled black jaguar living in a wolf
  
  
  shifter’s terri