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The Darwin and Beyond reading list.
For anyone interested in pursuing some of our speaker’s themes in greater depth, we are compiling a list of books you might like to follow up. Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in John Street Bath, who will be helping us publicise the Darwin and Beyond programme, can order any of these titles.
‘Evolution: A Very Short Introduction’
by Brian and Deborah Charlesworth
A compact account of evolution - its basic findings, recent developments, and its impact on traditional religion and philosophy.
‘Evolution: A Very Short Introduction’
by Brian and Deborah Charlesworth
A compact account of evolution -
Talk: 16 December 2008 ‘What Do We Now Know About The Causes Of Evolution?’, Professor Brian Charlesworth FRS
‘The History of Life: A Very Short Introduction’
by Michael Benton
The story of the unfolding of life on Earth, ranging over four billion years, weaving together the latest findings on fossils, earth history, evolutionary biology, and many other fields to highlight the great leaps that enabled life to evolve from microbe to human.
Talk: 30 January 2009 ‘Key Stages in the History of Life’, Professor Michael Benton University of Bristol
‘The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology’ by Tim Birkhead
Exposing the extraordinary lives of birds – from conception and egg, through territory and song, to migration and fully fledged breeder and how, over centuries, we have overcome superstition and untested ‘truths’.
Talk: 27 March 2009 ‘The Evolution of Promiscuity–what do the birds tell us about ourselves?’, Professor Tim Birkhead, University of Sheffield
‘Virginia Woolf and the Raverats: A Different Sort of Friendship’ edited by William Pryor
The story of an extraordinary relationship between one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and Gwen and Jacques Raverat told through the complete collection of their correspondence. Gwen was the granddaughter of Charles Darwin and Jacques was a French painter dying of MS. Illustrated with photos and the Raverats' wood engravings, paintings and drawings.
The story of an extraordinary relationship between one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and Gwen and Jacques Raverat told through the complete collection of their correspondence. Gwen was the granddaughter of Charles Darwin and Jacques was a French painter dying of MS. Illustrated with photos and the Raverats' wood engravings, paintings and drawings.
Talk: 5 February 2009 (13.00) ‘Gwen Raverat’, William Pryor, Darwin’s great great grandson
‘Darwin: A Life in Poems’
by Ruth Padel
Using multiple viewpoints – even, at one point, the orangutang at London Zoo – Ruth Padel follows the development of Darwin’s thought, the drama of the discovery of evolution, and fluctuating emotions in Darwin the husband, the naturalist and the tender father, in a powerful tribute to her famous forbear.
Talk: 4 March 2009 ‘Darwin: A Life in Poems’, Ruth Padel, poet and Darwin’s great great granddaughter
‘The Darwin Conspiracy: Origins of a Scientific Crime’
by Roy Davies
Did Darwin really come up with the idea of evolution himself or did he take it from a young researcher, Alfred Russel Wallace, trying to impress him? Davies challenges the commonly-
Talk (Bath Natural History Society Series): 2 February 2009 ‘The Darwin Conspiracy: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Theory of Evolution’, Roy Davies, author and TV producer.
And looking ahead to the December 2009, an exciting addition is Steve Jones's new book "Darwin's island -
