"How Jim Watson and Francis Crick deduced the double-helical structure of DNA first became known to the general public in 1968 through Watson's watershed The Double Helix." Genes, Girls and Gamow takes up the story of Watson's life from where The Double Helix finishes, the announcement of the double helix in the journal Nature in April 1953. The diary-like entries describe with freshness and immediacy Watson adjusting to new-found fame, carrying out tantalizing experiments on the role of RNA in biology, and falling in love. The book is enlivened by copies of hand-written letters from the larger-than-life, Russian-born theoretician George Gamow, who had made major contributions to physics but, in this period, was also intrigued by genes, RNA, and the elusive genetic code.