Rating: 
Summary: Pathetic. Inflated, egotistical & self-serving. NOT
Review: What's wrong with entertainment with a lil science thrown in for good measure. Gosh! You'd think this guy won a Nobel prize or something. He's an out-of-the-box thinker with ideas that may be hard for some of us to phantom. Does that make them pathetic/inflated? He talks about his adventures albeit some (most?) are misadventures. Does that make him egotistical/self serving? It is an autobiography, isn't it?What I found from reading *Dancing Naked* is an UNDERSTANDING of some scientific stuff and the delightful realization that people are just, well, people-with some faults and some promising *worth-whileness* all rolled into one person. Few of us live our lives to the fullest. Kary Mullis apparently does. I'd slap high fives with him any day!
Rating: 
Summary: Pathetic
Review: Inflated, egotistical, and self-serving beyond measure. Kary Mullis wastes our time with his dull anecdotes and half-cooked philosophy. If you're looking for insight into the scientist's creative process you won't find it here. Mullis gives us only a few pages on his discovery of PCR -- basically he stayed up real late thinking about it. So late that his girlfriend fell asleep. Imagine. Hell, this doesn't even work as fluff -- unless hearing about passing Marcia Clark in the hall at the O.J. trial floats your boat. I'd rather read star-boffer Angela Bowie's book. At least she delivers the goods.
Rating:
Summary: IGNORE THE ONE STAR CRITICS
Review: The average IQ trekkie is his Spock ears is apparently unable to discern the hysterical tongue-in-cheek nature of portions of this amazing book. Kary Mullis is not only a Nobel Prize winning scientist, but an incredibly gifted writer, humorist, and overall creative genius. Avoid it if you rode the short bus to school or have no sense of humor.
Rating: 
Summary: I laughed out loud!
Review: Reading Dancing Naked in the mind Field may not have change my life, but reading it defifitely made my day much better. I found this book while looking for another book in the science section of our local bookstore. I opened the cover and read the first few pages, from there I couldn't put the book down, and I ended up finishing the book while I drank coffee in the bookstore. The book might not be very focused on his discover of PCR, but it was very entertaining. At some points I even caught myself laughing out loud, causing a little disturbance to the other people around me. Even though most reviews have said that Kary has an ego, he talks about his life as if he is very down to earth. He met the Empress of Japan...so what? That's his attitude. He seems to know that we are all just people... even Queens and Kings. Kary shous us in 200 pages that you can win a Nobel Prize and still enjoy life's simple pleasures.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly disappointing
Review: I brought this book with me to the Cape last week -- thought it would be a good beach read. Sadly, it turned out to be neither interesting nor entertaining. The overwhelming pomposity of this thing is just a massive turnoff. Almost testified at the OJ trial, big whoop. Keeps his beer in the lab fridge, oh my god! Goes to a strip club and someone takes his picture, wow, he must be huge! You get the idea...
Rating: 
Summary: A fun read by Dr. Iconoclast
Review: Yes, Mullis has a big head and misses few opportunities to hint at his intelligence, but in a geekily endearing sort or way. I have to laugh, though, at one reviewer's dismissal of the PCR invention as a "patently obvious solution to a chemical engineering problem that any one of a million scientists would have seen next week or next month." Right. Presumably that bitter PhD is mining the wealth of other patently obvious solutions, so as to commandeer the next 100 or so Nobel's in Chemistry ;) It's always obvious ex post, and denies the huge gap between those who can conceive critical new ideas and those who merely understand them in the aftermath. Deal with it. This was a thought-provoking (if uneven) book and definitely worth the short read. As for luck, I'll take it over mediocrity any day!
Rating:
Summary: Intelligence, humor, and an ego
Review: I'll have to start by agreeing with most of the other posts and say he does have a big ego. The first time I heard Dr. Mullis speak was at a college scholarship competition. I was blown away at his outlandish ideas. My thoughts were "Where did they find this guy?" and "Who or what makes him the almighty?" Therefore I decided I had to read his book. The book was basically a summary of his speech, but with more detail that allows you to understand what he is thinking. Overall, the main idea of the book is not to be locked up in the traditional cage of thought, but let your mind freely question and explore. This book should be read for enjoyment and to broaden one's own little, enclosed spectrum of life.
Rating:
Summary: It definately makes you think
Review: It is an interesting book;it is beneficial in that it allows a person to see that most innovations in science today are small steps toward a greater goal. Furthermore, it makes the average joe feel he or she can also be a nobel prize laureate. The book also mentions many of Mullis' life experiences which were very strange and intriguing to say the least.
Rating: 
Summary: A charlatan who got lucky
Review: If you take Mullis with a grain of salt, you may be able to derive some simple pleasure from this pedantic, blatently self-promoting autobiography of the world's largest ego. Here it is in a nutshell. 'When I was nine, I knew how to make an electromagnetic lock for my door. Aren't I smart.' 'When I was 17, I was making obscure chemicals for industrial uses in my garage (while drinking beer). Aren't I smart' 'In college I experimented with a variety of mind altering drugs and had many sexual liasons, habits I had not given up when I stumbled into a Nobel Prize by coming up with a patently obvious solution to a chemical engineering problem that any one of a million other scientists would have seen next week or next month. Just imagine my intellectual prowess, being able to cut through a fog of perpetual intoxication and achieve my rightful place among the honored scientific greats. AREN'T I SMART!!' 'By the way, I also believe in all sorts of non-scientific malarky so as to place me 180 degrees apart from the steroetype of the scientist as a bookish nerd devoid of passion and imagination. Aren't I cool.' This is my analysis, subject to critique of course. I would just like to say that I know many brilliant people (non-Nobel lureates) whose intellectual foci rest light-years beyond anything Mullis could ever come up with. Some people think he's a genius. I declare that the man is a little bit Timothy Leary, a little bit L. Ron Hubbard, with maybe a splash ingenuity, most of the latter being retained to explore bigger and better ways of tooting his own horn. He is without a doubt merely a charlatan who got lucky.
Rating:
Summary: A bipolar event, he's either a genius or fruitcake
Review: I alternately admired and disliked the author. He's got a heck of an ego, but amazing genius. He gives a great rendition of why people should be at least scientifically aware. Then he shifts to how he tried to pick up witness in the OJ Simpson trial courtroom(the author was a defense witness), including asking Simpson for her phone number. A fascinating inside discussion of HIV researchers is given, but after Dr. Mullis tells about his contact with aliens and randomly opening fire on his property to cure his nervousness about one area. The book will keep your attention, kinda like reading about a cross between Einstein and a charismatic mental patient. I'd also suggest reading the biography "Genius" about another Nobel Prize winner, Richard Feynman, and comparing his relationship with woman to Kary Mullis.
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