Synopses & Reviews
With the 2006 publication of
The God Delusion, the name Richard Dawkins became a byword for ruthless skepticism and "brilliant, impassioned, articulate, impolite" debate (
San Francisco Chronicle). his first memoir offers a more personal view.
His first book, The Selfish Gene, caused a seismic shift in the study of biology by proffering the gene-centered view of evolution. It was also in this book that Dawkins coined the term meme, a unit of cultural evolution, which has itself become a mainstay in contemporary culture.
In An Appetite for Wonder, Richard Dawkins shares a rare view into his early life, his intellectual awakening at Oxford, and his path to writing The Selfish Gene. He paints a vivid picture of his idyllic childhood in colonial Africa, peppered with sketches of his colorful ancestors, charming parents, and the peculiarities of colonial life right after World War II. At boarding school, despite a near-religious encounter with an Elvis record, he began his career as a skeptic by refusing to kneel for prayer in chapel. Despite some inspired teaching throughout primary and secondary school, it was only when he got to Oxford that his intellectual curiosity took full flight.
Arriving at Oxford in 1959, when undergraduates "left Elvis behind" for Bach or the Modern Jazz Quartet, Dawkins began to study zoology and was introduced to some of the university's legendary mentors as well as its tutorial system. It's to this unique educational system that Dawkins credits his awakening, as it invited young people to become scholars by encouraging them to pose rigorous questions and scour the library for the latest research rather than textbook "teaching to" any kind of test. His career as a fellow and lecturer at Oxford took an unexpected turn when, in 1973, a serious strike in Britain caused prolonged electricity cuts, and he was forced to pause his computer-based research. Provoked by the then widespread misunderstanding of natural selection known as "group selection" and inspired by the work of William Hamilton, Robert Trivers, and John Maynard Smith, he began to write a book he called, jokingly, "my bestseller." It was, of course, The Selfish Gene.
Here, for the first time, is an intimate memoir of the childhood and intellectual development of the evolutionary biologist and world-famous atheist, and the story of how he came to write what is widely held to be one of the most important books of the twentieth century.
Review
"The Richard Dawkins that emerges here is a far cry from the strident, abrasive caricature beloved of lazy journalists....There is no score-settling, but a generous appreciation and admiration of the qualities of others, as well as a transparent love of life, literature — and science." The Independent
Review
"[Here] we have the kindling of Mr. Dawkins's curiosity, the basis for his unconventionality."
The New York Times Daily
Review
"Surprisingly intimate and moving....He is here to find out what makes us tick: to cut through the nonsense to the real stuff."
The Guardian
Review
"[T]his isn't Dawkins's version of My Family and Other Animals. It's the beauty of ideas that arouses his appetite for wonder: and, more especially, his relentless drive...towards the answer."
The Times (UK)
Review
"Enjoyable from start to finish, this exceptionally accessible book will appeal to science lovers, lovers of autobiographies-and, of course, all of Dawkins's fans, atheists and theists alike."
Library Journal, starred review
Review
"This memoir is destined to be a historical document that will be ceaselessly quoted."
The Daily Beast
Review
"This first volume of Dawkins's autobiography...comes to life when describing the competitive collaboration and excitement among the outstanding ethologists and zoologists at Oxford in the Seventies — which stimulated his most famous book, The Selfish Gene."
London Evening Standard
Synopsis
New York Times bestselling author and renowned atheist and evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins delivers an intimate look into his own childhood and intellectual development, illuminating his path to becoming one of the foremost thinkers in modern science today
"A memoir that is funny and modest, absorbing and playful. Dawkins has written a marvelous love letter to science . . . and for this, the book will touch scientists and science-loving persons . . . Enchanting." --NPR
Richard Dawkins's first book, The Selfish Gene, was an immediate sensation and dramatically shifted the study of biology by offering a gene-centered view of evolution. Published in 1976, the book transformed the way we think about genes and evolution and has sold more than a million copies. In 2006, Dawkins transformed the world's cultural and intellectual landscape again with The God Delusion, a scientific dismantling of religion. It was a New York Times bestseller and has sold more than two million copies worldwide. An Appetite for Wonder is Dawkins's insightful memoir examining his own evolution as a man and as a thinker. From his beginnings in colonial Kenya to his intellectual awakening at Oxford, Dawkins shares his path to the creation of The Selfish Gene, and offers readers an in-depth look at the man and the mind that has changed the way we view science and evolution.
About the Author
Richard Dawkins, voted Prospect magazine's #1 World Thinker, has previously published 11 books, all still in print, including The Selfish Gene, the blockbuster bestseller The God Delusion, and his magnum opus The Ancestor's Tale. Dawkins is a fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He was the inaugural holder of the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the International Cosmos Prize of Japan.