Interesting story but felt very unfinished and almost a bit far fetched. Overall I would recommend this to A very targeted audience that has a specific interest in this area of science and history.

This surprisingly fast-paced book about the DNA splicing of the ancient mammoth and the modern elephant is a fascinating look at science. While science is the topic, the author has made his research more dramatic by re-creating dialogue and by tweaking the stories and interviews. The story opens "three thousand years ago" on Wrangle Island, and continues "Four years from today" in Siberia. Not all readers of non-fiction will enjoy this approach, but for lovers of the popular science genre it does make for an exciting and educational read.

This is a very interesting topic, but it's not quite told in the way I was expecting and honestly distracts from the content a bit.

I read this book for a very particular reason. Not because I am a biologist. Not because I study evolution. Not because I used to work with elephants. And certainly not because the author is known for other works, such as Bringing Down the House, which inspired the movie 21. The true reason I wanted to read this book is because of my bucket list. One day, I want to eat a dodo. That’s right, I want to bring an extinct animal back to life, just so I can eat it.

Woolly is a dramatized retelling of the scientific journey to bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction. The story follows several scientists through their discovery process and establishment of both the science and collaborations. I find de-extinction to be a fascinating topic, and a great conversation starter, especially surrounding the ethical implications. However, this book does not really touch on that.

I found this book strange, though this may be due to me being a scientist. Every event was described in such detail, and in many cases quite dramatically. Scenes that took place in the laboratory, if adapted to film, would have a pretty extreme soundtrack. Granted, maybe these labs do indeed have the most action-packed pipetting known to man, but I highly doubt it. And while I rolled my eyes at such details, I still had fun with the novel. Having the first and last chapter take place in the future, however, really strayed from the scientific reality I was hoping to gain from the work. Personally, I would have like more emphasis on the science, but it was an entertaining read.

If you're a fan of truth that reads like a novel - Woolly is a great choice! Ben Mezrich is such a conversational writer that I found myself quickly enmeshed in this saga. The subject was fascinating and the ethical questions raised explored well. I would definitely recommend Woolly as a book discussion selection. It makes for fabulous conversation.

Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures, is a terrific read. But I'm glad this book by Ben Mezrich included "true" in the title, or I might have mistaken it for a novel. That's because the author's storytelling has a Jurassic Park quality about it. That's not a criticism; it makes for an entertaining, thrilling reading experience through the way Mezrich writes about the real-life characters and their scientific work. Highly recommended, even if you're not a woolly mammoth fan.

A fascinating look into how science fiction becomes science thanks to people who don't believe that anything is impossible (what's impossible today may not be impossible tomorrow). What we humans have been doing for centuries to destroy the world, a few may be able to reverse. How? By writing the DNA of extinct creatures. This books centers on the Woolly Mammoth, but it also mentions other species of birds or even wolves. It doesn't avoid the ethical implications (do we have the right to exterminate a whole species of mosquitoes to prevent malaria? Would it be OK to create a synthetic human or resurrect the Neanderthal?) and the technical aspects are simplified enough for the most science-phobe. But, over all, the characters - who are real people, are simply amazing. The story is novelized and reads like fiction, so it's entertaining and fun. I can't wait to visit Pleistocene Park!

Mezrich picks interesting topics, I will concede that. Readers may already have heard some years ago that a Harvard lab was working on de-extinction of the Woolly Mammoth. Mezrich brings us up to date on this project; indeed, the first and last chapters in this “nonfiction” are set in the future.

If you are familiar with Mezrich’s writing, the author weights the concept of narrative nonfiction heavily on the narrative and fiction sides, ostensibly to stoke momentum and get folks interested. The only problem is that his very good instincts about what is intrinsically an interesting story fights with his method. Sometimes the reader has to thrash through pages of invented dialogue to reach a critical conclusion, a real buzz killer if there ever was one.

But this story works on many levels, and while we are following his careful step-by-step thrust with one eye, our mind is busy on the operations of a lab and the implications of the study for medicine, for wildlife, for every aspect of our visible and invisible world. Mezrich eventually addresses many of these key issues in the text, usually making the science sound responsible and considered.

I started to grow more uncomfortable towards the end of the book, when we are reminded that the science has progressed so far so fast that genomic modifications have escaped the lab environment and can be undertaken in a made-over garage for relatively small costs, and that billionaires of every stripe are lining up to make their money count for something big.

The real excitement of this story is in our imaginations, and what the skills and knowledge of present-day scientists can allow us to imagine. Mezrich places us in fund-raising meetings with billionaires, allowing the most humble among us to enjoy the same stories and sense of excitement that fuels movers and shakers. If the glamour of the whole thing begins to seem suspect at some point, I think you’ve caught my sense of unease.

Mezrich shares the history of the project, including the work by Nikita Zimov in Northern Siberia, determining that woolly mammoths seemed to have played a role in preserving the permafrost levels of the tundra, by upturning the soil and exposing lower layers to the freezing temperatures. His father, Sergey Zimov, apparently theorized that reestablishing animal herds that roamed Siberia earlier in human history might play a role in keeping escaping carbon and methane, now sequestered in permafrost, from accelerating the speed at which the earth warms.

The fact that woolly mammoth remains are discovered regularly now in thawing and melting ice and snow of the north is something I had not known. The ancient ivory from the tusks is not protected and is therefore an important source of income for hunters, sold in lieu of protected elephant tusks, for the same reasons, to the same buyers.

The scientists involved in the story at one of the Church labs at Harvard are fascinating individuals in their own right, each with a backstory that only fuels our interest. The project has been going on long enough now that the twenty-something personnel involved at the beginning of the project are turning it over to others, younger ones still, to ensure continuity of skills on such a forward-looking project. The whole concept and execution of the mammoth idea is sufficiently…mammoth…and complex enough to make readers feel as though they have been subtly changed by the experience.

(view spoiler)

Due out July 4th.

The story told in this book was fascinating, but I found the creative nonfiction method employed in telling it waaaay too creative. I actually spent the first thirty pages or so trying to make sure the book was actually nonfiction at all. Some Googling proved that, yes, these people are real and are actually doing what the book purports- attempting to de-extinct the woolly mammoth through cutting edge genetic engineering. Fascinating. But the book seemed in such a rush to be fascinating and to set up scenes for the already-optioned movie that it failed to come across as serious. There were even scenes set in the future, after a woolly mammoth has supposedly been created and born. I wanted a bit less creativity and narrative and a few more facts, maybe a footnote or a reference. Intriguing but ultimately too superficial to be satisfying.

Interesting narrative fiction. I wasn't prepared for a thriller but it worked well and was unexpectedly thought provoking.

I've been following this story for quite a while now, it was interesting reading a book about it. Anyone who is interested in Jurassic Park type scenarios, for better or worse, will find this book thought provoking.

My personal test as a science person reading science non-fiction: Is it serious, is it readable and enjoyable, is it accessible to non-science readers.......this title passes all of my tests.

Woolly: The True Story of the De-Extinction of One of History’s Most Iconic Creatures by Ben Mezrich is the story of Dr. Church and his colleague's advancements in genome engineering. Mezrich graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Social Studies from Harvard University in 1991. Some of his books have been written under the pseudonym, Holden Scott. He is best known for Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions and The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding Of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal.

I probably would not have picked this book up if I had known it was narrative fiction. The book is written in novel form and the reader is left to believe or not believe what is written. There is a small section of cited works but nothing is footnoted. Optionally there the reader could look up each bit of questionable information and fact check on their own. That is what I did and what I looked up did check out. This was mostly limited to events and people in the book and not conversation and smaller details.

George M. Church is the leader of the project that is working on brings back the wooly mammoth. The book traces his life from childhood to the present with all the ups and downs of a normal life. Both his accomplishments and his failures make him the person who he is today and a person willing to take a chance on projects and people. He is also very well respected in the scientific community. Instead of operating in secret, Church chooses to share information. This also allows him to collect on favors. Several of his students are also portrayed in the book and details of their varied backgrounds.

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is work being done in Siberia on permafrost. A part of northern Russia (and Canada) contain a permanently frozen layer of earth. It was once thought that if the permafrost thawed it would be suitable for farming. The current findings, however, seem to show the opposite. If the earth warms up enough to thaw the permafrost, the release of methane from the thawing permafrost would be catastrophic. The permafrost would release up to twice as much carbon dioxide and methane that is currently in the atmosphere. This ties into the Wooly Mammoth's planned de-extinction.

Mezrich writes an interesting thriller which would fit in well with the much mentioned Michael Creighton or another novelist of that genre. It would seem hard to make DNA and genome engineering exciting for the non-scientific reader but Woolly reads like a thriller. There is even two chapter that takes place in the future that lends to the thought this is a work of fiction. With that exception of the previous point, all the information appears to be legitimate. An interesting and thought provoking read on the advancement of science.

Available July 4, 2017