On the origin of species

Review by Choice Review

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species has been published again, in a new illustrated edition designed to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Origin's initial publication. There were a total of six editions published while Darwin was still alive; the publisher and Quammen, a natural history writer who superbly edited the work, selected the text from the first edition because they felt it was the "freshest, the most dramatic and daring and consequential of all the versions." This statement could be challenged since the second through sixth editions contain Darwin's "Historical Sketch," written after he received criticism for not giving his predecessors proper credit in the initial edition, and the sketch attempted to address this problem. The illustrations are wonderful, containing beautiful paintings and prints from Darwin's time, some unusual photographs including one of Darwin's mother, Susannah Wedgwood Darwin, and illustrations and photographs of many organisms, from the 19th century as well as from the present. They will allow Darwin's epic work to come alive for those outside the field of natural history and the history of science, and encourage them to read this book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels of academic, professional, and general readers. J. S. Schwartz emeritus, CUNY College of Staten Island

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

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Review by New York Times Review

A kid-friendly guide to great art, an illustrated update of 'The Jungle Book,' a travel book for fearless young explorers and more. ONE OF THE more rewarding parts of parenting has to be watching your kids take to something with the kind of ferocity you might've forgotten was possible - whether it's playing center midfield or mastering a sonata, or obsessing over every last variety of shark species. The most obvious step to igniting or sustaining that passion is, obviously, handing them a book - preferably a large, lovely, immersive book to get lost in over long vacation days. YOU KNOW THE KID who can conjure an entire imaginary world by animating, say, the sugar packets she finds at the restaurant table? That one will thank you when you put any volume of MY BIG WIMMELBOOK (The Experiment, 16 pp. each, $12.95; ages 2 to 5), written and illustrated by Stefan Lohr and Max Walth, in front of her. Picture Richard Scarryesque, diorama-like spreads with a hint of "Where's Waldo" junior detective. The combination should encourage long contemplative sit-downs that will make any parent's heart sing. Similar to Scarry's famous village-wide cross-sections, Wimmelbook scenes are teeming with subscenes and silly minutiae. A beach-andocean spread in "Animals Around the World," which presumably takes place near Australia, shows crabs scurrying up the sand, cartoonish whales and squid swimming through the bottom of the page, airplanes and blimps flying among sea gulls and messenger birds (holding envelopes in their beaks), and a few hapless characters we meet at the beginning with instructions to find them on every page. (Oh no! Poor Stuart getting bitten by a crab!) Originally published in Germany - where Wimmelbooks are a standard part of young childhood - the four large-format board-book volumes that hit the States this year are "Cars and Things That Go," "On the Farm," "At the Construction Site" and "Animals Around the World." LIKE ALL THE BEST children's books, A HISTORY OF PICTURES FOR CHILDREN (Abrams, 128 pp., $24.99; ages 10 to 14), written by the artist David Hockney and the critic Martin Gayford, with illustrations by Rose Blake, is as interesting for adults as it is for their charges. It turns out that in addition to painting California pools, Hockney has a giftfor communicating his kidlike enthusiasm for works of art that many of us have seen so many times we don't really see them anymore. "I have no idea how he did it!" he writes about the deep shadows on the Mona Lisa as part of a larger discussion on light. Or of his own work: "Painting water is a great challenge - but it's a nice problem!" Or, when describing his experience watching Disney's "Pinocchio" frame by frame: "When I noticed how it was done, I was astonished. There are passages that look like Chinese art and Japanese prints, with white sea foam and swirling waves. . . . It's fantastic." Indeed, one of the more fun parts about this book is Hockney and Gayford's ability to integrate so many facets of pop culture into the discussion; just try to read about that "Pinocchio" scene without rushing to YouTube to see what he's talking about. Geared toward tweens and early teens, the book jampacks information on every spread, but everything is broken down into digestible chunks. It's the kind of book you want lying around in the TV room, welcoming kids to dip in and out or just flip through and familiarize themselves with some of the most famous works of art in history. IT'S NO SECRET that the fastest way to a kid's heart is with the words "Let me tell you a story." Add a layer of unexpectedness to that promise, and you've got the winning formula for Atlas Obscura, the online magazine dedicated to uncovering the most wondrous places on earth. THE ATLAS OBSCURA EXPLORER'S GUIDE FOR THE WORLD'S MOST ADVENTUROUS KID (Workman, 110 pp., $19.95; ages 9 to 12), written by Dylan Thuras and Rosemary Mosco and illustrated by Joy Ang, offers brief, kid-friendly true tales about some of the more fascinating man-made and natural spectacles across the world. Kids can read about 100 off-the-map places to visit, including the Russian town of Oymyakon, the coldest inhabited place on earth, where schools don't close unless the temperature drops to 62 below zero. Or the German amusement park built in an abandoned nuclear power plant. Or the underwater ruins of an Egyptian coastal town that disappeared 2,300 years ago, and which archaeologists are digging up temple by temple, treasure by treasure. This one is perfect for vacations and long road trips. YEAH, WE KNOW, there's an app for that - many in fact - but if the point is to curb the screen time, Sara Gillingham's SEEING STARS: A Complete Guide to the 88 Constellations (Phaidon, 213 pp., $24.95; ages 7 to 10) has as good a shot as anything for teaching your kid how much there is to see if you just look up. Quite literally. The book organizes the 88 official constellations into two sections: "ancient" (constellations first recorded thousands of years ago) and "modern" (those identified during the age of exploration, 1500-1700). Every spread is dedicated to one constellation and includes how-to-find information (assuming you live in the right hemisphere, which it tells you too); a full-page image of its connectthe- dot shape rendered in a celestially inspired teal-navy-gold palette; and the stories (mythological or historical) behind those shapes and clusters. "Stars are not only beautiful to look at," Gillingham reminds us. They once helped farmers figure out planting seasons, guided explorers and travelers, and, most crucially for our purposes today, offered inspiration to retell stories and legends and make sense of a mysterious otherworld. "The stories can still develop and change, as they have over thousands of years," she writes. "You, too, can be a part of those stories." HERE'S ONE FOR the kid most likely to show up at the next March for Science (or for the kid you wish would join you there): Charles Darwin's ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: Young Reader's Edition (Atheneum, 176 pp., $25.99; ages 10 and up), adapted by Rebecca Stefoff, with illustrations by Teagan White. Darwin's manifesto, first published in 1859, laid out his theory of natural selection, the idea that species changed over time to adapt to their surroundings, as opposed to being divinely created in present form. Because this theory was so world-rocking - to the scientific community and beyond - the original edition includes mountains of dense evidence. Stefoff's edition doesn't have to work so hard, and the result is a streamlined, simplified version, helped along by an introduction covering biographical information on Darwin - kids might be interested to know he was not a standout student). There are also boxes like "The Making of the Modern Dog," explaining how two radically different breeds within the same species, chihuahuas and Great Danes, came to be. MOST CHILDREN (and most parents) are more likely to have seen the Disney versions of "The Jungle Book" than to have read Rudyard Kipling's 19th-century story collection about Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves. But you don't have to be wellversed in either to enjoy INTO THE JUNGLE: Stories for Mowgli (Walker Books, 234 pp., $24.99; ages 8 to 11), written by Katherine Rundell and illustrated by Kristjana S. Williams, an oversize, richly illustrated, heirloom-quality book of origin stories for the characters who populated Mowgli's jungle world. Here is the lame ferocious tiger Shere Khan, whose anger, we learn, can be traced back to his abusive father; Baloo the bear, who became a champion for the smaller, lesser species by learning to speak their languages; Mowgli's wolf mother, Raksha, who saved her baby brother using the one-two punch of agility and words. Rundell has geared the book toward readers ages 8 to 11, but her lyrical words feel as though they were written to be read aloud in front of a fire in a slow, craggly voice: "A tiger has a very specific smell to a wolf. It smells of metal and heat and spit. It smells of take-care and stayaway." It's impossible not to imagine a room full of younger kids transfixed by the hypnotic action. If Rundell's storytelling doesn't do it for them, the illustrations surely will. Williams's richly drawn jungle scapes are equal parts gorgeous and haunting, an irresistible combination. JENNY ROSENSTRACH writes about books and food on her blog, Dinner: A Love Story. She is the author of three books, including, most recently, "How to Celebrate Everything."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 11, 2019]

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Review by Library Journal Review

As a milestone not only in the history of science but also in cultural history, On the Origin of Species belongs in every library, high school and above. Nature writer Quammen (The Reluctant Mr. Darwin) offers a gloriously illustrated and richly annotated volume, which testifies to the book's enduring legacy. Throughout the text, relevant sidebars from other of Darwin's writings, including his Autobiography, field notes from the HMS Beagle, and his myriad letters, are presented for their insight. Illustrations include historical images, such as sketches, woodcuts, and portraits of people and places, but also included are contemporary photographs of the flora and fauna that Darwin described. Between the contextual additions and the edifying illustrations, there is no comparable volume. For all libraries. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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From George Levine's Introduction to On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859)1 is one of the major books of Western civilization, and possibly the last major scientific text fully readable by nonscientists. It was written before the full force of scientific specialization had created the division we are used to today: science written for scientists, and intelligible only to them, or popular science aimed not at being science but at explaining it, and (usually) making otherwise too difficult scientific ideas attractive to the nonexpert. Darwin was certainly writing for scientists, but he knew that his book would be read by many nonprofessionals, and by many who were deeply invested in the religious and cultural implications of his ideas. The book is thus a work of real science, offering the strongest possible technical arguments for its ideas, while at that same time it does much of the work of popular science. But Darwin was never a popularizer like his "bulldog" and partisan, T. H. Huxley (also a distinguished scientist), who took upon himself the job of fighting all the fights, particularly the cultural ones, that Darwin's ideas were to arouse. More than a hundred years later, and despite the triumph of his ideas in the world of science, Darwin continues to need his bulldogs, for the very availability of his text to lay readers makes it particularly susceptible to critique from the whole spectrum of cultural and religious critics, many of whom do not seem really to understand its arguments. The upside of this condition is that the book has survived longer than virtually all other scientific texts--whose usual life span is necessarily very short because science moves so quickly. Its ideas remain important, and they are well and lucidly argued. Evolution, the dominant idea with which Darwin's name is permanently associated (though he didn't actually use the word), was promulgated and firmly established in The Origin of Species . And we can still read the book now, even without the help of Huxley or the modern polymath popularizer and scientist Stephen Jay Gould. This is not to say it is an "easy" book, or one that prima facie will thrill lay readers out for a good read. It really is a good read, despite (or, one might say, because of) the rigor of its argument and the almost overwhelming accumulation of details deployed in support; but it is deceptively simple. No book with so clear and well argued a position has been so variously interpreted and so widely misunderstood; few have been as difficult for its readers fully to absorb. The simple argument is so fundamentally anti-intuitive that even now, after 150 years, it has been difficult not to distort it in directions more comfortably consistent with readers' assumptions about the way the world is. Reading the book remains an adventure, and the activity of imagining Darwin's prolific, diverse, and often very beautiful world continues to be an exciting challenge to one's tacit assumptions about the way the world works. The Origin of Species is not only a fundamental work in the history of science; it is a unique book in the history of English literature. There are few as important. That Darwin was a great scientist everyone knows, but it is not immediately obvious that he was a great writer as well. Yet no writer of the nineteenth century had to struggle more strenuously with the limits of language, none was more imaginatively and creatively metaphorical, few were more influential in shaping other writers' imagination of the world: none had a more significant and lasting effect on Western culture. Excerpted from The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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