For anyone interested in the recent history of genetics research, this is a wonderful week. James Watson and Craig Venter, the scientists who have done more than anyone to push forward the study of DNA, have brought out autobiographies at the same time. Both men are bold, brash characters and their books brim with entertaining revelations about the feuds, fights and friendships that underlie great research projects.

Simultaneous publication makes it irresistible to compare the two stories, though they do not cover the same ground. A Life Decoded is the first book by Venter, 61, who led the privately funded effort to decode the human genome during the 1990s. He has written a wonderfully original work that captures the whole of his life, from a wild 1950s boyhood in California, through harrowing military service in Vietnam to his current programme to produce the world’s first “synthetic organism” from laboratory chemicals.