false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170357861m/49186.jpg 49186 10 Robert Graham, the oddball inventor and millionaire at the heart of David Plotz's book, <i>The Genius Factory</i>, is the archetype for the cliché, "more money than brains." It was Graham who reckoned America was going to hell in a hand basket and the best way to halt the trend was to impregnate women with sperm donated by Nobel Prize winners and other overachievers (providing they were smart and white). Forget for the moment the not-so-thinly-veiled racism powering the whole eugenics movement that served as the backbone of Graham's Repository for Germinal Choice. Graham's super-sperm idea also conveniently overlooked the fact that the women carrying the babies would also leave a genetic imprint while ignoring the nurture-versus-nature argument. Though Plotz addresses these concepts in his book, the real reason to recommend it is its characters, the sperm bank progeny Plotz unearths through intense and covert legwork. The book's humor is also a selling point: "In abstract, donating sperm seemed fundamentally silly. But actually doing it was seductive," Plotz writes. "I had been accepted by the ultraexclusive Fairfax Cryobak! My sperm was 'well above average'! My count was 105 million! What's yours, George Clooney?" Elsewhere, Plotz writes, "By late 1980, Graham found himself presiding over a Nobel Prize sperm bank that had no Nobel Prize donors, no Nobel sperm left in storage and no Nobel babies. None of the first three women who'd been inseminated with Nobel sperm had gotten pregnant. In fact, no one inseminated with the Nobel sperm ever got pregnant. The Nobel Prize sperm bank would never produce a single Nobel baby." No matter. Graham's experiment, which did produce dozens of non-Nobel babies, was a success in one regard: it made for a heck of a story. And in Plotz's capable hands, it also makes for a heck of a book. <i>--Kim Hughes</i> 48116 2005 The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank total:214|5:21|4:71|3:89|2:31|1:2| 214 720 308 44 4 0 false true Sat Jun 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 11:43:10 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 12:04:43 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Dec 22 17:52:07 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 22 17:56:22 -0800 2007 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:34:07 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:34:07 -0800 2009 Critics are split on whether the book, which emerged from a series of articles Plotz wrote for Slate, is better when it focuses on personal stories or when it discusses the larger issues. The light tone that Plotz takes is never disrespectful. The author's seeming ambivalence about the genetic compo...

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"There's nothing worse than a wish unfulfilled, except a wish fulfilled." ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Thu Aug 16 23:25:42 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 16 23:26:00 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Nov 17 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Oct 15 20:21:33 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 20 10:16:29 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 true false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Wed Oct 07 08:17:14 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 08:19:24 -0700 2009 1 3 0 false false Thu May 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 29 23:38:09 -0700 2009 Fri May 29 23:41:01 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Jun 30 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 10:21:16 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 30 07:21:41 -0700 2008
Don't let the word "history" in the subtitle scare you. Though Plotz thoroughly recounts the sperm bank's history, he keeps it moving and interesting at every turn. He puts everything in helpful perspective. It's eye opening how new the sperm-bank industry is...and I ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Dec 29 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 29 19:54:52 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 29 19:56:00 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Wed Jul 22 20:38:09 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 20:40:34 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Sep 26 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 24 17:29:25 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 27 17:25:23 -0700 2008 1
note, there are biologists who argue we stopped evo...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 10:21:16 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 10:22:23 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sat May 16 10:00:32 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 10:01:08 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Aug 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 14:40:09 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 31 14:41:02 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 11:42:28 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 11:43:43 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Nov 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Nov 24 17:58:41 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 25 13:50:22 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Thu Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Fri Aug 03 16:29:06 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 16 12:18:57 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 12 17:36:05 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 12 17:39:11 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Aug 18 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 07 19:05:39 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 18 18:29:27 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=49186