I’ve been fascinated with the cutting edge advances in biomedical research, especially when it comes to the topic of regenerative medicine. The idea of actually constructing and designing whole new tissues and organs – practically from scratch in the lab – really appeals to the geeky side of me. I am fully convinced that, barring some unforeseen global catastrophe, the technological advances in the upcoming decades have the potential to transform human life and all aspects of our societies beyond what most people can imagine. This is why I was eager to read “The Ageless Generation.” Unfortunately, the book left me very disappointed.

The biggest problem with this book is its content. I was really hoping for a book that focuses more on the nitty-gritty of the latest scientific and engineering advances, and how will they concretely change our lives and the field of medicine. Unfortunately, too much of this book was dedicated to the background and historical material that seemed for the most part to be tangential to the main discussion. The actual scientific sections, especially the ones focusing on the current and future research, comprised just a very small part of the book. Furthermore, those topics were very cursorily covered, and left me asking more questions than they had answered. At no point was my fascination piqued, or my interest deepened. For the most part book offered opinions when I would have liked insight and analysis. Some of those opinions I agreed with, some I found questionable, but for both I would have liked if the author offered more evidence and structured evidence based analysis. And reasoning by analogy doesn’t count.

Writing is meandering, oftentimes reparative, and not infrequently tedious. This whole book could have been condensed into an article one-fifth its size. The whole book reads more like an overly long op-ed piece, instead of a popular science account. Many of the truly fascinating topics are picked up very casually and never fully developed, which made the book very frustrating to read.

This book had a lot of promise. It contains a lot of information that many readers may find new and intriguing. However, the book fails to deliver on its premise, and I find it too unfocused, both in terms of style and content.