Illustration: Mick Connolly.

Science

The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures CHRISTINE KENNEALLY Black Inc, $29.99

The Meaning of Human Existence EDWARD O WILSON Liveright, $30.95

The Meaning of Human Existence by Edward O Wilson.

At face value, things aren't always quite as they seem. DNA, however, doesn't lie. The challenge is to work out what truth it can reveal about ourselves. When Christine Kenneally's father sat his five adult children down in the kitchen to reveal a hidden family truth, he was barely able to mouth the words, such was his discomfort.

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The story of a missing grandfather triggered an interest that Kenneally, an accomplished science writer, couldn't let go. A quarter the DNA tucked away in each of her cells was from a man the family knew nothing about. What might his story reveal about her? She became her family's historian, driven by a more ambitious guiding question than most amateur genealogists: "Can our personal DNA tell us about the history of the world?"

Now in his 80s, eminent Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson's heritage is also threaded with angst. Growing up in the United States' racist Deep South during the 1930s and '40s, he retreated into nature. His childhood contemplations about the world around him led him to become one of the world's most influential and provocative thinkers about social behaviour.

The Invisible History of the Human Race by Christine Kenneally

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How family histories can tell us who we are