Book excerpt: The first edition of Mark Ptashne's 1986 book describing the principles of gene regulation in phage lambda became a classic in both content and form, setting a standard of clarity and precise prose that has rarely been bettered. This edition is a reprint of the original text, together with a new chapter updating the story to 2004. Among the striking new developments are recent findings on long–range interactions between proteins bound to widely separated sites on the phage genome, and a detailed description of how gene activation works.