Genesis: The Scientific quest for Life's Origin

The origin of life on Earth from non-living matter nearly 4 billion years ago is a topic which should be of interest to us all. However books on the subject either tend to lack detail, or become too technical for the general reader. Hazen has a background of making science more accessible and here has managed to create a book which is easy to read, but also covers much of the research in this area. It's a subject in which controvesies abound, and I would recommend this book to all readers who want an informed account of the question of life's origin.

Hazen's central theme is that of emergence - how a complex system can have behaviour not present in its constituents. He shows how the generation of small biological molecules is surprisingly easy, but the joining together of these into the macromolecules of life and the involvment of these macromolecules in self-replicating systems, are trickier questions for which there are several competing hypotheses.

Hazen has played a significant part in recent research in this area and his descriptions of the competition between various research groups adds interest to the work, while avoiding the trap which some authors fall into of losing sight of the science in the accounts of personal interactions.