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Title: The Genius Factory

Subtitle: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank

Author: David Plotz

Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-07-05

Publisher: Books on Tape

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 74 votes

Genres: Science & Technology, Technology

Publisher's Summary:

Crisscrossing the country and logging countless hours online, Plotz succeeded in tracking down previously unknown family members: teenage half-brothers who ended up following vastly different paths, mothers who had wondered for years about the identities of the donors they had selected on the basis of code names and brief character profiles, fathers who were proud or ashamed or simply curious about the children who had been created from their sperm samples.

The children of the "genius factory" are messengers from the future, a future that is bearing down on us fast. What will families be like when parents routinely "shop" for their kids' genes? What will children be like when they're programmed for greatness? In this stunning, eye-opening book, one of our finest young journalists previews America's coming age of genetic expectations.

Critic Reviews:

"Plotz has fun poking holes in the eugenic vision of the repository's founder....More captivating, however, is Plotz's recounting of the efforts of the women who visited the repository to discover the identities of their donors. As he gets to know a cluster of families and donors, Plotz reaches insightful conclusions about the unforeseen emotional consequences of artificial insemination....The attempt to breed genius babies may have an aura of surreal humor, but the sensitive narration always reminds us of the real lives affected, and created, through this oddball utopian scheme." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Interesting stories, but not what I expected.

I'm not sure what I expected when I got this audio book, but it wasn't what I got. I guess I thought there would be some more solid data about how the whole nobel prize sperm bank experiment all turned out, or more about the genetic factors in intelligence.

However, now I've heard it, it's understandable why there wasn't more about this aspect. It's because no-one really knows how the nobel sperm experiment turned out, and if the stories in the book are anything to go by, many of the donors weren't really genius's anyway, and only one nobel prize winner is actually known to have donated.

The stories are interesting, and relate to donors finding children, children finding donors, children finding half siblings, and the interactions and relationships that ensue between them. It raises thinking points about what impact the donors had on the intelligence of the children as well as the impact finding out they were nobel sperm babies had on them. But it doesn't so much answer these questions as leave them for you to ponder yourself.

There is a smattering of the authors opinions on various topics surrounding the nobel sperm bank, sperm banking in general, eugenics and alike, but it's more passing thoughts and general opinions than concerted research. However the author always presents it as such, and never tries to pass off his musings as factual.

Overall it was an entertaining book, and the authors style is quite funny. There's one particular story that really stands out, when one of the children finally meets his "nobel" donor, and he is not quite what you would expect.

Rest of the story..

An interesting listen for finding what had happened to the "breed your own Nobel Winner" idea.