Darwin and the Beagle
by Alan Moorehead | 
Darwin's Ghosts
by Rebecca Stott |
Darwin's Origin of Species
by Janet Browne | 
Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution
by Randal Keynes | 
Darwin's Island
by Steve Jones | 
Ever Since Darwin
by Stephen Jay Gould |
Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms
by Richard Fortey |
Life
by Richard Fortey | 
The Descent of Man
by Charles Darwin | 
The Panda's Thumb
by Stephen Jay Gould | 
The Code Book
by Simon Singh | 
The Botany of Desire
by Michael Pollan |
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
by David Quammen | 
The Gene: An Intimate History
by Siddhartha Mukherjee | 
A Man on the Moon
by Andrew Chaikin | 
The Sixth Extinction
by Elizabeth Kolbert | 
Cod
by Mark Kurlansky | 
Salt
by Mark Kurlansky | 
The Disappearing Spoon
by Sam Kean | 
The Johnstown Flood
by David McCullough |
A scientific detective story that illuminates the remarkable saga of Darwin's greatest achievement. Pairing Charles Darwin and a rare species of barnacle as her unlikely protagonists, Rebecca Stott has written an absorbing work of history that guides readers through the treacherous shoals of nineteenth-century biology. Beginning her scientific detective story in the 1820s, even before Darwin's Beagle voyage, Stott examines the mystery of why Darwin waited over two decades between formulating his pivotal theory of natural selection and publishing it. Lavishly illustrated, filled with riddles and concepts that challenge our notion of Victorian science, Darwin and the Barnacle is a thrilling account of how genius proceeds through indirection--and how one small item of curiosity contributed to history's most spectacular scientific breakthrough.