A user's manual for understanding why we do the things we do, "Living With Our Genes" is the first comprehensive investigation of the crucial link between DNA and behavior.

Nowhere is the nature-nurture controversy being more arduously tested than in the labs of world-renowned molecular geneticist Dean Hamer, whose cutting-edge discoveries of specific genes linked to behavioral traits -- such as anxiety, thrill-seeking, and homosexuality -- prove without a doubt that we are in large part hardwired to behave the way we do. Hamer is one of a small group of researchers mapping the human personality, and his findings help, in part, to explain why one brother becomes a Wall Street trader while his sibling remains content as a librarian; why some people like to bungee-jump while others play Scrabble.

"Living With Our Genes" helps readers understand their particular genetic makeup and decipher the mysteries of genetically inherited behavioral traits. Hamer shows that much of our behavior -- how much we eat, weigh, drink, use drugs, and have sex -- is heavily influenced by genes. He also sheds light on some of the most compelling and vexing aspects of personality, such as shyness, aggression, depression, and intelligence.

In the tradition of Listening to Prozac, this is a wonderfully anecdote-filled book that explains how we arrive at the idea of self in an ever-changing scientific landscape.