Stephen Jay Gould wrote essays for the Natural History magazine, once a month, for 27 years. The essays have been published in book format: this is number seven in the series of ten books. It's also the only one in the series that has been translated to Finnish.

Gould is an excellent writer of popular science. He doesn't make things too simple, but instead writes like he would write to his peers, just replacing the professional language with something more understandable. Based on this book, it's a good approach. Any intellectually curious person should be able to read and enjoy this book and be challenged.

What's it about? Mostly evolution, Gould's specialty, but also history of science, natural history, statistics, creationists... Gould covers lots of ground and plenty of interesting topics around these central themes. He can draw quite surprising connections between things. I've rarely read popular science this charming. This is highly recommended! (Review based on the Finnish translation.)

(Original review at my review blog.) ( )

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/7... ( )