... elegant, deeply researched.

One has the feeling, while reading this book, of fumbling through the unknown.

No mere catalogue of errors, Life’s Edge guides us from an abandoned mine in the Adirondacks where bats hang in homeostatic slumber to a California start-up attempting to synthesize RNA-based medications. With these and other examples, Zimmer illustrates why it is so difficult to arrive at a common understanding of where life stops and starts—and how we might one day reach it.

Zimmer diligently tackles the true definition of life.

By profiling researchers working on these inquiries, Zimmer shows the complexity of reaching a single answer as each proposed definition has its edge cases that provide challenging counter-examples.

Zimmer gives ample space to nitpickers who point out exceptions, and a few chapters record interviews with scientists exploring each of these hallmarks. None answer the author’s big question, but readers will not complain because Zimmer is such an engaging communicator. Confronting a possibly unanswerable question, the author explores its history, an eye-opening review of three centuries of research by intensely curious, obsessive, often obscure scientists who contributed to many revelations about the amazing attributes of life.

... stimulating.