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Feb 04, 2009
Max Maxwell
rated it
it was amazing
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review of another edition
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50-book-challenge-2009-failed-48,
evolution
To be clear, Wonderful Life is not a perfect book, but it is certainly an amazing book. It's pertinent to ask, "Where does the book fall flat?"
First, the middle section of the book, "The Reconstruction of the Burgess Shale," is just a little bit too long. I mean exactly what I said; a few pages, say, 20 or so, after you've said, "OK, I'm ready to get out of this murky details section and get on with the implications of it all," the section ends. As Gould points out, the section is, admittedly, i ...more
First, the middle section of the book, "The Reconstruction of the Burgess Shale," is just a little bit too long. I mean exactly what I said; a few pages, say, 20 or so, after you've said, "OK, I'm ready to get out of this murky details section and get on with the implications of it all," the section ends. As Gould points out, the section is, admittedly, i ...more
Wonderful Life was a fascinating and exciting book; the descriptions and illustrations of the weird and wonderful fossils of the Burgess Shale were awe-inspiring. But the amount of dry history of the life of Henry Walcott in chapter four was anti-climactic. If some more of that had been added to the beginning, with the first descriptions of Walcott and his work on the fossils, it would have been much more bearable. But coming after all the flashy excitement of the fossils, it just dragged on. I
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Wonderful Life has been on my to-read list for a very long time, and I'm glad I was finally able to get around to it. I love what Gould did with it. Instead of devoting the bulk of the book to painting a broad picture of the Cambrian, he went into incredible detail with a few key organisms. I loved this approach. The history of scientist's interpretation of the fossils was also fascinating. I should have read this a long time ago, especially considering that Gould is one of my favorite authors.
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Velvetink
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