From a living legend—James D. Watson, who shared the Nobel Prize for having revealed the structure of DNA—a personal account of the making of a scientist. In Avoid Boring People the man who discovered “the secret of life” shares the less revolutionary secrets he has found to getting along and getting ahead in a competitive world.

Recounting the years of his own formation—from his father’s birding lessons to the political cat’s cradle of professorship at Harvard—Watson illuminates the progress of an exemplary scientific life, both his own pursuit of knowledge and how he learns to nurture fledgling scientists. Each phase of his experience yields a wealth of age-specific practical advice. For instance, when young, never be the brightest person in the room or bring more than one date on a ski trip; later in life, always accept with grace when your request for funding is denied, and--for goodness’ sake--don’t dye your hair. There are precepts that few others would find occasion to heed (expect to gain weight after you win your Nobel Prize, as everyone will invite you to dinner) and many more with broader application (do not succumb to the seductions of golf if you intend to stay young professionally). And whatever the season or the occasion: avoid boring people.

A true believer in the intellectual promise of youth, Watson offers specific pointers to beginning scientists about choosing the projects that will shape their careers, the supreme importance of collegiality, and dealing with competitors within the same institution, even one who is a former mentor. Finally he addresses himself to the role and needs of science at large universities in the context of discussing the unceremonious departure of Harvard's president Larry Summers and the search for his successor.

Scorning political correctness, this irreverent romp through Watson’s life and learning is an indispensable guide to anyone plotting a career in science (or most anything else), a primer addressed both to the next generation and those who are entrusted with their minds.

"Signature Reviewed by It's coming on 40 years now since James Watson published one of the classic works of popular science, The Double Helix. In that slender volume, Watson told how he and Francis Crick collaborated for two furious years to discover the structure of DNA. It is a great story splendidly told, but what truly set The Double Helix apart from most other books about scientific discoveries was Watson himself, less a narrator than a character: a wildly ambitious young man splitting his time between searching for the secret of life and trying to find a date, ready to spill the beans on friends and enemies alike.The Double Helix focused on only two years of a life that has now spanned nearly eight decades. After his Nobel Prize — winning work on DNA, Watson went on to become a towering figure in the new science of molecular biology, first at Harvard University and then as director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Watson offers a new look back in Avoid Boring People, which he presents as, of all things, a self-help book. At the end of each chapter, he reviews the lessons he learned during that phase of his life. 'This is a book for those on their way up, as well as for those on the top who do not want their leadership years to be an assemblage of opportunities gone astray,' he writes.There's much that is entertaining and historically revealing, and Watson still knows how to deliver a delicious skewering. He refers to his opponents at Harvard who resisted his push into molecular biology as 'so many prima donnas whose meager accomplishments scarcely justified even the status of has-been.' There's also much cause for head-scratching. In the 21st century, Watson's descriptions of 'my hopes of finding a suitable blonde' are not even funny. He pads the book with too many details, like the $8.86 his lawyer billed him for toll calls. And while some of Watson's advice is wise ('never be the brightest person in the room'), some is obsolete. 'A scientific team of more than two is a crowded affair' made sense in the 1950s, but today it's impractical for Watson's intellectual grandchildren, who must work together in squadrons on massive projects to analyze entire genomes. And when he offers lessons on how to spend your Nobel Prize money, you realize that Watson is actually offering lessons on being James Watson. And that unique job, we all know, is very much taken. 65 photos. (Sept. 27) Carl Zimmer's books include Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea and Soul Made Flesh. His next book, on E. coli and the meaning of life, will be published by Pantheon next spring. " Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"James Watson's 'The Double Helix,' published in 1968, recounted the thrilling scientific race to discover the shape of DNA, for which he had shared a Nobel Prize a few years earlier. The book was an instant sensation because it showed the author and his peers to be three-dimensional characters as elegant and convoluted as the molecule they were chasing. Today, the slim volume is considered a classic... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) just a notch or two below Charles Darwin's 'The Origin of Species.'

Watson's new memoir, 'Avoid Boring People,' will never reach that height. But it will add another layer of complexity to his legacy. This is partly because the 79-year-old scientist concludes the book with some tentative conjectures about racial or ethnic differences in intelligence:

'The relative extents to which genetic factors determine human intellectual abilities will also soon become much better known. ... A priori, there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of people geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.'

But that cautious language might have gone unnoticed had Watson not elaborated on his views while promoting the book in England. In an interview with the Times of London, he intimated that the brainpower of blacks is inferior to that of whites, saying he is 'inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa' because 'all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.' He went on to say that although he hopes all races are equally intelligent, 'people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.'

Watson has occasionally made racist, sexist and anti-gay statements in the past — suggesting, for example, that if a gay gene were discovered, women ought to be able to abort a fetus that has it. His recantation and apology for last month's remarks had a distracted feel: 'I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. There is no scientific basis for such a belief.'

One irony, which cannot escape anyone who reads 'Avoid Boring People,' is that the book is structured as advice on good manners, fruitful collaboration and scientific etiquette. Among the lessons in Chapter 6 ('Manners Needed for Important Science') is: 'Always have someone to save you.'

Watson had no one to save him from himself. Scientific luminaries worldwide excoriated him. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, his professional home for four decades, suspended him from administrative duties. He canceled his book tour, flew home and retired.

While 'Avoid Boring People' is not laced with obvious racism or sexism, these are topics Watson can't seem to stay away from. In the first chapter, he remembers his father's distaste for anti-Semitic jokes, writing, 'He knew enough to avoid occasions where polite silence in response to repulsive remarks could be construed as acquiescence in their awfulness.' Watson also points out that after World War II his graduate school, Indiana University, hired scientists who were Jewish or leftists when other universities rejected them.

Almost every chapter includes a litany of pretty girls and whether they liked him, which, while tedious, is still far from his 2003 quip about genetic engineering: 'People think it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great.'

In his epilogue, Watson alternately assails and defends former Harvard University president Lawrence H. Summers, who stepped down in 2006 after an outcry over his musing that women might not be smart enough to succeed in science. Watson tilts at intellectual curiosity while tiptoeing perilously toward a repugnant generalization: 'Anyone sincerely interested in understanding the imbalance in the representation of men and women in science must reasonably be prepared at least to consider the extent to which nature may figure, even with the clear evidence that nurture is strongly implicated.'

In a statement Watson released upon his retirement last month, he noted that 'the passing on of my remaining vestiges of leadership is more than overdue.' Had he followed his own memoir's proffered lessons, especially the very last one — 'Make necessary decisions before you have to' — he might have retired from Cold Spring Harbor years ago or kept some of his opinions to himself."

Reviewed by Susan P. Williams, an editor on The Washington Post's national staff, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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“a deliciously detailed account of his life both in and out of science… insightful, useful and on target about science, competition, leadership, teaching and academic success…His remarkable recall of events…gives the reader the feeling of being there…full of insight into Watson and into a life in science…He is at all times blatantly but entertainingly honest about his likes and dislikes…Watson remains one of the most fascinating scientists of our time, as iconic in some respects ash is double helix.”

- Huntington F. Willard, Nature

“Among James Watson’s gifts is the flying gibe…those who can ignore Watson’s latest gaffe will not be bored.”

- Brenda Maddox, The London Times

Watson--who helped discover the secret of life and won the Nobel Prize by the time he was 34--shares everything he has learned about getting good work done, in this delightful and wittily instructive memoir. Photos throughout.

James D. Watson was director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York from 1968 to 1993 and is now its chancellor. He was the first director of the National Center for Human Genome Research of the National Institutes of Health from 1989 to 1992. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, he has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, and, with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.