Life on the Edge

This illuminating account of an important new field is a wonderfully educative read.

A C Grayling

Physicist Jim Al-Khalili and molecular biologist Johnjoe McFadden explore this extraordinary realm with cogency and wit.

Nature Magazine

'Life on the Edge’ gives the clearest account I’ve ever read of the possible ways in which the very small events of the quantum world can affect the world of middle-sized living creatures like us. With great vividness and clarity it shows how our world is tinged, even saturated, with the weirdness of the quantum.

Philip Pullman

A really original science book about a new field of research ... Groundbreaking.

Clive Cookson, Financial Times

This thrilling book is an overview of a field that barely exists ... Al-Khalili has a genius for illustrating complex ideas via imaginative sidetracks.

The Sunday Telegraph

The great virtue of this book is its thesis – it sets out a clear and enthusiastic argument for the importance of quantum biology.

New Scientist

Coherence is just one of the complex phenomena that Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden set out to teach the reader. They succeed by using delightfully revealing analogies and similes, some borrowed from their prior work, that make slippery concepts sit still for study.

The Economist

Hugely ambitious ... the skill of the writing provides the uplift to keep us aloft as we fly through the strange and spectacular terra incognita of genuinely new science.

Tom Whipple, The Times

The book elegantly opens up a new way of looking at nature.

The Independent - ''Books of the Year"

The volume is clearly written, showcases cutting-edge research and provides ample basic science background on topics like genetic inheritance, the origin of life and the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics ... Al-Khalili and McFadden's book provides a valuable service by giving us a fascinating look at what is undoubtedly one of the central philosophical mysteries of science - the emergence of complex properties such as life and consciousness from the reductionist world of atoms and molecules.

Nature Chemistry

Fascinating... The breadth of the science and scholarship presented in the book is outstanding. Most readers will be yearning for a sequel in a few years.

Nature Chemistry

Life on the Edge is a fascinating and thought-provoking book that combines solid science, reasonable extrapolation from the known into the unknown, and plausible speculation to give an accessible overview of a revolutionary transformation in our understanding of the living world … The authors have an easily accessible style, free from jargon, that can make complex issues clear even to the non-scientist.

Wall Street Journal

Physicist Al-Khalili is joined by the geneticist McFadden to describe quantum biology: an explosive field that barely exists yet. As this trhilling overview explains, it is the study of the spark of life itself.

Daily Telegraph

Life on the Edge takes us on a tour of ideas spanning quantum physics, biology and biochemistry ... surprising and intriguing ... an important book and one I found hard to put down.

BBC Focus