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The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution
David Quammen · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness
Oren Harman · 451 pages
Describes the intellectual journey of eccentric American genius George Price, who tried to answer the evolutionary riddle of why people are nice, and eventually gave away all his belongings and took his own life in a squatter's flat.
The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
Robert Wright · 496 pages
Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith
Deborah Heiligman · 282 pages
Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin
Stephen Jay Gould · 250 pages
In Full House, Gould corrects the prevalent, anthropocentric view of the world with an eloquent argument for a new paradigm of progress in which variety - not complexity - is the true measure of excellence. In the process, Full House teaches us how to read trends as changes in variation within full systems, rather than as "things moving somehwere".
The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor
Colin Tudge, Josh Young · 267 pages
For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel the human family tree and have grappled with its complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery, everything we thought we knew about primate origins could change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world's leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime - a perfectly fossiliz
Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution
Richard Fortey · 302 pages
"With Fortey's expert guidance, we begin to understand how trilobites reveal the pattern and mechanism of evolution through their fossil legacy in the rocks. Through the eyes of trilobites, he allows us glimpses of former worlds as foreign in their geography as in their life forms. Altogether, he provides a unique picture of our geological past, which in turn provides us - scientist and layperson
Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution
Rebecca Stott · 396 pages
Christmas, 1859. Just one month after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Darwin received a letter that deeply unsettled him. He had expected criticism. Letters were arriving every day like swarms, some expressing praise, most outrage and accusations of heresy. But the letter from the Reverend Powell was different.
Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease
Sharon Moalem · 279 pages
Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity is a 2007 New York Times Bestselling science book by Sharon Moalem, an evolutionary biologist and neurogeneticist, and Jonathan Prince, senior advisor and speechwriter for the Clinton administration. It was originally titled, Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease.
The God Delusion
Richard Dawkins · 416 pages
Publication Date: January 16, 2008 A preeminent scientist—and the world's most prominent atheist—asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11. With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker f
The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates
Frans de Waal · 304 pages
A renowned primatologist argues that ethical behavior witnessed in animals is the evolutionary and biological origin of human fairness and explains that morality has more to do with natural instincts than with religion.
How the Mind Works
Steven Pinker · 661 pages
"Presented with extraordinary lucidity, cogency and panache...Powerful and gripping...To have read [the book] is to have consulted a first draft of the structural plan of the human psyche...a glittering tour de force" - Spectator "Why do memories fade? Why do we lose our tempers? Why do fools fall in love? Pinker's objective in this erudite account is to explore the nature and history of the human
Origins: 14 Bllion Years of Cosmic Evolution
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Donald Goldsmith · 336 pages
"Drawing on the current cross-pollination among geology, biology, astrophysics, and cosmology, Origins explains the soul-stirring leaps in our understanding of the universe while capturing the importance of such extraordinary events as the first image of a galaxy being born and the exploration of Martian frontiers by Spirit Rover. Distilling complex science into clear and lively prose, coauthors N
Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle
Thor Hanson · 336 pages
Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: aerodynamic, insulating, beguiling. They date back more than 100 million years. Yet their story has never been fully told. In Feathers, biologist Thor Hanson details a sweeping natural history, as feathers have been used to fly, protect, attract, and adorn through time and place. Applying the research of paleontologists, ornithologists, biologists, engineers,
Lucy: the beginnings of humankind
Donald C. Johanson, Maitland Armstrong Edey · 492 pages
En 1974, en Ethiopie, un tout jeune paléoanthropologue américain, Donald Johanson, découvrait, "en pièces détachées", le squelette d'une petite dame d'un mètre à peine, de trente kilos et de trois millions et demi d'années. En l'honneur des Beatles, elle était aussitôt baptisée Lucy.En 1979, l'annonce officielle de cette stupéfiante découverte, avec tous les détails résultant des travaux de J0hans
Darwin on Trial
Phillip E. Johnson · 247 pages
Is evolution fact or fancy? Is natural selection an unsupported hypothesis or a confirmed mechanism of evolutionary change? These were the courageous questions that professor of law Phillip Johnson originally took up in 1991. His relentless pursuit to follow the evidence wherever it leads remains as relevant today as then. The facts and the logic of the arguments that purport to establish a theory
Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality
Jared Diamond · 176 pages
The Meaning of Human Existence
Edward O. Wilson · 207 pages
How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examini
Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live
Marlene Zuk · 328 pages
Debunks beliefs based on the assumption that human beings have finished evolving and defends the assertion that modern man is not biologically the same as our caveman ancestors.
Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
Olivia Judson · 320 pages
Do your genitals explode? Are you 200,000 times smaller than your mate? Do you drug your lover with a potion that keeps her faithful? You may not get up to such tricks, but some creatures do: sex is one of the most powerful forces in nature, and generates an astounding diversity of forms and behaviors. But why? Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation explores the science of sex, considering eve
Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
Michael J. Behe · 307 pages
Virtually all serious scientists accept the truth of Darwin's theory of evolution. While the fight for its acceptance has been a long and difficult one, after a century the battle is over. Biologists are now confident that their remaining questions, such as how life on Earth began, or how the Cambrian explosion could have produced so many new species in such a short time, will be found to have Dar
Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life
Nick Lane · 368 pages
"Today, mitochondria are central to research into human prehistory, genetic diseases, cell suicide, fertility, ageing, bioenergetics, sex, and the eukaryotic cell. Piecing together puzzles from the forefront of research, this book paints a sweeping canvas that will thrill all who are interested in biology, while also contributing to evolutionary thinking and debate. This is a book full of insights
Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea
Carl Zimmer · 384 pages
Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation
Bill Nye · 309 pages
"Sparked by a controversial debate in February 2014, Bill Nye has set off on an energetic campaign to spread awareness of evolution and the powerful way it shapes our lives. In Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, he explains why race does not really exist; evaluates the true promise and peril of genetically modified food; reveals how new species are born, in a dog kennel and in a Lo