This is a novel about research institutes, the precariousness of their funding, and the vulnerability and vanity of the human characters that inhabit them. It also claims to be about the nature of scientific discovery.

Allegra Goodman

The Dial Press, $25, pp 344 ISBN 0 385 33612 8 Also available as an ebook, $17.95 www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/dialpress.html

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A gawky, brilliant, and highly strung postdoctoral researcher, Cliff, has spent seven years working obsessively on the task assigned him by his professors on his first day in post—to find a cure …