Hearing “The Song of the Cell”

This semester, the One Book Program invites PVCC students and faculty to learn the mechanics and history of cellular biology and how it promises to revolutionize medicine and what it means to be human. Every year, the PVCC’s One Book Program chooses a single book to make available for the entire college for free. This year, that book is the New York Times bestseller The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human, by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

The Song of the Cell was one of three One Book candidates chosen by the Committee for this year — the other two being The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness, edited by Dacher Keltner, Jason Marsh, and Jeremy Adam Smith and The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis.

“Once we have our list of three, we send it out to the entire college community, faculty, staff, students, and everybody gets to vote, and the winner of that becomes the One Book for the following year,” said Crystal Newell, director of library services and co-chair of the One Book Committee. “The Song of the Cell was actually a runaway winner. It crushed the other two.” Indeed, more than half of the 206 respondents who voted for this year’s One Book chose The Song of the Cell.

The Song of the Cell centers around the topic of cellular biology, its history, and how it is shaping the future. It discusses the role of cells as the fundamental units of life and how our understanding of them allows us to engineer and modify cells to fit our own purposes.

The book’s themes will be incorporated into many events this semester, including “Animalcules of PVCC,” a microscope activity sponsored by the science department held on Oct. 2; a screening of the documentary Human Nature on Oct. 18 at noon; a One Book Trivia contest on Nov. 1 at noon; “Our Invisible World,” a photo contest sponsored by the art department, where “students, faculty, or staff are prompted to look small, think big,” with submissions closing Nov. 3; an art gallery exhibition opening on Nov. 17; and at least one guest speaker. You can get up-to-date on the events planned for this One Book by visiting www.pvcc.edu/student-services/library/one-book-program.