The search for the solution to what Sir John Herschel famously called the “mystery of mysteries” – how new species come to exist – has brought a myriad of remarkable creatures to the attention of science. From Deinonychus to Darwin’s Galapagos finches, every discovery has added another clue to the assembled body of knowledge that may someday yield the solution. Yet after reading Sean B. Carroll’s Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species, the reader is left with another tantalizing question to ponder in addition to Herschel’s mystery; that question being which are really the more remarkable – the creatures that have been discovered in the one-hundred-fifty year old quest for the mystery’s answer or the “creatures” (meant rhetorically and with the greatest possible respect, of course) who made the discoveries. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night in New York, the National Book Foundation announced the recipients of their 2009 awards. As previously reported here on The Well-read Naturalist, two natural history titles, Sean B. Carroll’s Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species and David M. Carroll’s Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook, were in contention for the non-fiction award. Sadly, it was not the year for either of these two very fine books to be honored with the award, which was bestowed upon T.J. Stiles’ The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

The results of the awards notwithstanding, I have found both Remarkable Creatures as well as Following the Water to be well worth the attention of all those interested in natural history. Look for reviews of both these titles to appear on The Well-read Naturalist in the weeks to come.