The first collection of essays from renowned scientist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins is an enthusiastic declaration, a testament to the power of rigorous scientific examination to reveal the wonders of the world. In these essays Dawkins revisits the meme, the unit of cultural information that he named and wrote about in his groundbreaking work The Selfish Gene. Here also are moving tributes to friends and colleagues, including a eulogy for novelist Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; correspondence with the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould; and visits with the famed paleoanthropologists Richard and Maeve Leakey at their African wildlife preserve. The collection ends with a vivid note to Dawkins's ten-year-old daughter, reminding her to remain curious, to ask questions, and to live the examined life.

'Richard Dawkins taught zoology at the University of California atBerkeley and at Oxford University and is now the Charles Simonyi Professorof the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position hehas held since 1995. The Wall Street Journal said his \"passion is supportedby an awe-inspiring literary craftsmanship.\"The New YorkTimes Book Review has hailed him as a writer who \"understands theissues so clearly that he forces his reader to understand them too.\"Among his previous books are The Ancestor\'s Tale, The Selfish Gene,The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweavingthe Rainbow, and A Devil\'s Chaplain. Dawkins lives in Oxford with hiswife, the actress and artist Lalla Ward.'