How to Win the Nobel Prize by J. Michael Bishop, Harvard University Press, 拢18.50/$27.95, ISBN 0674008804 Reviewed by Roy Herbert
THE author, himself a Nobel laureate, admits his title is facetious and it鈥檚 easy to see why. His book covers so much ground it would have been impossible to choose one comprehensive enough. Here is autobiography, biography, history, microbiology, philosophy, sociology and fiery polemic. All of this is informed by wit and humour, often self-deprecating, a form allegedly dear to the British. If that helps sales, so much the better. This is a treasure.
There are illuminating remarks about the Nobel prize ceremonies, organised to the level of obsession by the Swedes. Each winner has an official detailed to watch that no rule of rigid protocol is contravened. One even lays down that at dinners, talk must be directed to the person on your right. The medal, supposed by many to be worn round the neck can鈥檛 be. There is nothing to attach a ribbon to. This section is enough to keep the reader delighted and agog through Bishop鈥檚 professed accidental slide into science and microbiology. (He won his Nobel for medicine jointly with Harold Varmus for discovering the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes.)
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Much of the story of microbiology might be familiar, advances made by luminaries such as Pasteur and Koch, cholera in London, John Snow and the Broad Street pump and so on, but Michael Bishop keeps flicking sidelights into the narrative and it all seems fresh. For instance, the London Board of Health proved too energetic about public hygiene and was abolished. The Times supported this: 鈥淲e prefer to take our chance of cholera rather than to be bullied into health,鈥� it thundered.
Bishop is at his best in two other areas, a complete and up-to-date survey of research into cancer鈥檚 causes and the long struggle for cures and a passionate defence of science in general and cell research in particular. But he does not stay on the defensive. He includes well-argued attacks on its enemies but even here he is never shrill. Above all, How to Win the Nobel Prize is a civilised book and a lavishly rewarding one.