The Song Behind Today’s Review Title

[For the past several reviews I’ve picked a song lyric as the title of my review post. It’s been fun looking for songs that reflect the book I’ve read, and I hope it gives you the reader a bit of fun too, and a catchy tune to take with you through your day.]

There are a surprising number of songs about death. When thinking of songs to pick from for today’s review title, one of the first that came to mind was Oh Death by Ralph Stanley. I first heard that song in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou. It’s a song about asking death to pass by for another day and would certainly be appropriate for a book about whether or not we will find a breakthrough to extend human life. But the movie version is sung without instrumental backing, and the mournful rendition is actually something of a downer. (You can listen to the movie version here if you haven’t heard it before and really want to know what I mean.)

I didn’t find today’s book depressing in the least, so I set Oh Death aside and instead found a headbanger of a tune whose back story I didn’t even know until researching for this review. Turns out that in 2004, when Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong wrote Wake Me Up When September Ends, it was in memory of his late father, who died when the singer was only 10 years old. According to Wikipedia “On the day of his father's funeral, Armstrong reportedly ran home, locked himself in his room, and when his mother came to check on him, he told her to wake him up when September ended.” After resisting the idea of writing a song about his dad for years, that memory provided the breakthrough that he needed for a song, and it has gone on to become an anthem of the 2000’s.

Now that I know the story behind the song, I can’t help but find it to be more effecting than before. Check out this video of Green Day performing the song in 2013 to see what I mean. In the last part of the song when Billie Joe hits the line “like my father’s come to pass” he can’t complete the line, and that moment gave me the feels (as we might have said back in 2013) when viewing the video as I wrote this review. The specific line from the song that is today’s review title speaks to the inevitability of death.

I’ve done something I don’t normally do while reviewing a book — I looked at other people’s reviews. Yes, I did, and since (spoiler alert) I think this book is a four star, I looked on Goodreads at reviews by others who awarded the book four stars. More on that in a bit.

Why We Die is, not surprisingly, a book about death. Specifically, this is a book by a molecular biologist about why, at a cellular level, things break down and stop working to a point of causing an organism to die. It’s also a book about some of the flim-flam being pushed as ways for people to live longer lives. These so-called “longevity” products take many forms, and many are based on the kernel of a scientific idea. So, there is room for a scientist to help separate the reality from the quackery, which is what the author of this book tries to do.

The book goes into quite a bit of detail about the workings of cells, mitochondria, DNA, RNA and other such things a molecular biologist knows about. To my mind Ramakrishnan is an adept and thoughtful teacher guiding us through all this detail. As someone who does not have a biology background, much of this was new territory for me. Yet I didn’t feel overwhelmed.

Perhaps that’s because I both listened and read the book. I checked the audiobook version out of my library through the Libby app and downloaded the ebook using my Kobo Plus subscription. So I got to see the drawings of cells and cell structures (which were quite helpful) while listening to the book.

But a good portion of the time I listened along without reading - while working out or doing chores - and I was able to follow along pretty easily, only having to backup and relisten a few times.

Which is why I was surprised - going back to those other reviewers - that so many who gave this book four stars also commented that it “read like a textbook” at least in some places.

Now, if you’ve read my past reviews, you likely know that I am a big fan of what I call “history of science” books. These are the books that take on some specific scientific or technical subject and explain it, and how it came to be that we have such and such a scientific theory or technology today. Even I can sometimes feel that such a book gets bogged down and can “read like a textbook”.

But, at least for me, this book is not one of them. I think those other reviewers are vexed by the fact that the author says up front that he will take on some of the quackery, but then takes a long, deep dive into the science before coming back to it. Kind of like I teased up front about “other reviewers” and then went off in another direction before coming back to them. (Maybe I did that on purpose, maybe I didn’t.)

So, here’s my bottom line. This is a very enjoyable and thorough book on the science of life and the biological causes of death, with a scientist’s take on the value of some of today’s so-called longevity products. And if you pick it up and read it, you may think it’s too thorough (like some of those other reviewers) but I think you’ll still feel its a four-star read.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

RATING COMMENTS: A history of science book that walks us through cells and what causes them (and us) to die, with a scientist’s view on the value (or lack of value) of so-called longevity products.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I listened to the audiobook downloaded from my library using the Libby app, while reading the ebook through my Kobo Plus subscription.