Watson came from America to Cambridge, aged 23, in 1951 to work on proteins, but soon joined Francis Crick in a quest that led to the inauguration of modern genetics two years later. They agreed to conduct their quest for DNA's structure through model-building, and feared being beaten by either the US-based Linus Pauling or the London team of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. But what Pauling came up with was flawed, while Wilkins and Franklin were biased against a helical structure and anyway at loggerheads. This account, first published in 1968, is an exhilarating memoir, in which Watson recreates "my first impressions of the relevant events and personalities" rather than sanitising them to suppress, say, Crick's pursuit of young "popsies" or their joy whenever rivals blundered. This approach does, however, result in a notorious portrayal of "Rosy" (whose X-rays were vital to the Cambridge duo's breakthrough) as an intimidating dragon, and the book is regularly held up as evidence in condemnations of sexism in science.