Rebecca Stott's Darwin and the Barnacle covered an eight-year period of Charles Darwin's life, during which he conducted research on a single, though unusual, species of barnacle found in Chile. That well-received book is the perfect precursor to Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution, a wonderfully written and thoroughly researched accounting of the men who influenced Darwin in his quest to define the concept of natural selection and the process of evolution. Interestingly, the first printing of On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection contained no acknowledgment of predecessors; Darwin eventually created (and subsequently modified) a list of those who influenced him for later editions of the book. Stott has expanded on this list to create a well-rounded and chronological survey of opinion regarding evolutionary thought.
Stott's subjects range from the diverse writings of the self-educated Jahiz during the Abbasid Empire in 850, to the curiosities investigated by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 1400s in Milan, to the naturalist-philosophers who debated at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in the early 19th century and ultimately to the fevered dreams of Alfred Russel Wallace, who pushed Darwin to publish his masterpiece. Though the topic might seem intimidating at first glance, Stott has a novelist's gift for storytelling (as previous novels such as The Coral Thief demonstrate). Darwin's Ghosts will make a fantastic addition to your summer reading list. --Roni K. Devlin, owner, Literary Life Bookstore & More