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

Review
"It is rare to find a book that manages to combine science, politics, memoir, and medicine with ease, grace, and lucidity. Ramakrishnan's book, which comes at a time when the hype and hope around immortality has ascended to a febrile pitch, achieves precisely all of this, while taking readers on an incredible journey that encompasses the knowns and many unknowns that surround the science, mystery, and metaphysics of death and dying. This is a book for many generations, about many generations." — SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Emperor of All Maladies and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Gene

"For a book about death, Venki Ramakrishnan's Why We Die is joyfully alive. The story he tells is one of aging and death, but along the way he covers a huge range of biology, evolution, genetics, chemistry, and medicine. This is science writing at its finest: readable, authoritative, and impactful. The vignettes of important discoveries and the scientists that made them enliven the text, and show the personal side of the science of aging. As a scientist who studies dead things, this book gave me a whole new perspective on that one inevitable thing in every organism's life." — STEVE BRUSATTE, professor and paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh and New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

"Utterly fascinating. Venki Ramakrishnan's ability to take the most challenging subjects and make them clear, enthralling and packed with insights fills me with awe." — BILL BRYSON, New York Times bestselling author of The Body

"This riveting and revealing book is for all of us who wonder whether aging and mortality are the next frontiers for human science to cross. Has the first person destined to live to two hundred already been born? Can we really extend our longevity further and further until … until what? Immortality? Why We Die takes us on a thrilling ride through the science of aging. Meet naked mole rats, lugworms, budding yeast and creepy human charlatans on the way. Venki Ramakrishnan has an extraordinary gift for explaining science with clarity, wit, and enviably entertaining narrative flair. A must read." — STEPHEN FRY, comedian, actor, writer

"Why We Die is a crisply written, captivating and clear-eyed view of death, and how to defeat it. From research on starvation diets, young blood and cryonics to the longevity of naked mole rats, Nobelist Venki Ramakrishnan introduces us to a cast of extraordinary characters in his quest to fathom how elastic lifespan could prove to be. I believe Why We Die will be his enduring legacy, yet deep down, suspect most of us would still rather achieve immortality through not dying." — ROGER HIGHFIELD, OBE

"The conquest of premature death has been remarkably successful in the past century. Can we go one better and extend life? This erudite, nuanced and insightful book tells a rich tale of discovery about why we age and die, skewers some charlatans along the way and offers just a glimmer of hope about immortality." — MATT RIDLEY, New York Times bestselling author of Genome

“Why We Die brilliantly captures the essentials of current understanding of the aging process. This is an enjoyable romp through molecular and cell biology—and thought-provoking about ethical issues.” — Dame LINDA PARTRIDGE, Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Biology of Ageing

“This book explains, in an accessible and entertaining manner, the science behind one of the great themes of humanity. Excellent." — MICHAEL HALL, discoverer of TOR, recipient of the Lasker Award and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

"Why We Die is a candid, wide-ranging, and hype-free survey of the latest in longevity research, from tortoises to telomeres. With his delightful gift for storytelling, Venki Ramakrishnan breathes life into the biology of death. If you want to know what science tells us about lifespan, Why We Die is the only book you need." — SAFI BAHCALL, bestselling author of Loonshots: Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries

"Enthralling and eminently accessible. ... [Ramakrishnan] probes the essential ethical question that runs through it all. Even if we could live forever, should we?" — Bookseller (London)

Venki Ramakrishnan
Venki Ramakrishnan shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for uncovering the structure of the ribosome. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Venki runs the Ramakrishnan Lab at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. From 2015 to 2020, he served as president of the Royal Society, one of the world's oldest scientific organizations. He is the author of the frank scientific memoir Gene Machine.