A (Very) Short History of Life On Earth

My favourite book of the year and maybe the decade . . . brilliantly funny and brilliantly informative . . . I shall read it again and againEric Idle, actor and comedian

A scintillating, fast-paced waltz through four billion years of evolution, from one of our leading science writers . . . His poetic prose animates the history of life, from the first bacteria to trilobites to dinosaurs to us.Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh paleontologist and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

Exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years . . . Gee is a marvellously engaging writer, juggling humour, precision, polemic and poetry to enrich his impossibly telescoped account . . . [making] clear sense out of very complex narrativesThe Times

This is now the best book available about the huge changes in our planet and its living creatures, over the billions of years of the Earth’s existence . . . Henry Gee makes this kaleidoscopically changing canvas of life understandable and exciting. Who will enjoy reading this book? Everybody!Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel