Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life

Available on Amazon.co.uk & Amazon.com

Granta Books UK hardback 1998, Granta Books UK paperback 1999, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press North America hardback and paperback 2000, Shanghai Scientific and Technical Educational Publishing (Chinese edition) 2004. The UK edition is no longer available in bookshops, but can be bought through Amazon; contact me via this site if you have any difficulty.

The first biography of Britain's only female prizewinning scientist.

Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Marsh Biography Award.

'This life of Hodgkin is in the top rank of scientific biographies' (Sunday Times)

'Ferry has brilliantly captured the flavour of a century of science' (New Scientist)

'Georgina Ferry gives us a genuinely illuminating account of Hodgkin's life, neatly balancing the personal with the scientific.' (Times Literary Supplement)

The Common Thread: A story of science, politics, ethics and the human genome

With John Sulston

Available on Amazon.co.uk & Amazon.com

Bantam Books UK hardback 2002, Corgi UK paperback 2003, Joseph Henry Press North American hardback 2003, editions in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.

Nobel prizewinner Sir John Sulston's personal story of the battle to sequence the human genome and keep it as a common resource for all humankind.

Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction.

'A riveting account of what was going on behind the scenes ... anyone who is fascinated by the politics and ethics of research should read it.' (Financial Times)

'Unputdownable stuff... it is an insider's story of one of the century's greatest technopolitical ventures.' (The Times)

A computer called LEO: Lyons Teashops and the world’s first office computer

Available on Amazon.co.uk & Amazon.com

Fourth Estate UK hardback 2003, HarperPerennial UK paperback 2004.

The astonishing story of the British company that built a computer to run its catering business and became an IT pioneer and competitor for IBM.

Selected for BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, September 2003.

'One reads it with admiration and fascination, not just for Georgina Ferry's cool, poised and elegant storytelling, but for the people—the visionaries, the scientists, the engineers—who ... did something extraordinary because nobody had told them it couldn't be done.' (Daily Telegraph)

'Ferry tells the tale of Leo with her usual crisp style... The book weaves a very human tale with strands of scientific and social history' (The Guardian)

Max Perutz and the Secret of Life

Available on Amazon.co.uk

Chatto & Windus UK hardback July 2007; Pimlico UK paperback June 2008; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press North America hardback 2007.

The first biography of the refugee from Nazism who created the lab where Watson and Crick unravelled DNA, and who won the Nobel prize for understanding 'the breathing molecule' that makes blood red.

'The story of [Max's search for scientific enlightenment] is the substance of this engrossing biography by Georgina Ferry, who is rapidly turning into the most interesting science writer going.' (The Guardian)