David Quammen - The Reluctant Mr. Darwin [96] Unabridged

David Quammen - The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution

Unabridged, 96 kbps, Read by Grover Gardner

Overview
A fresh look at Darwin's most radical idea, and the mysteriously slow process by which he revealed it.

Evolution, during the early nineteenth century, was an idea in the air. Other thinkers had suggested it, but no one had proposed a cogent explanation for how evolution occurs. Then, in September 1838, a young Englishman named Charles Darwin hit upon the idea that "natural selection" among competing individuals would lead to wondrous adaptations and species diversity. Twenty-one years passed between that epiphany and publication of On the Origin of Species. The human drama and scientific basis of Darwin's twenty-one-year delay constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution.

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin is a book for everyone who has ever wondered about who this man was and what he said. Drawing from Darwin's secret "transmutation" notebooks and his personal letters, David Quammen has sketched a vivid life portrait of the man whose work never ceases to be controversial.

Editorial Reviews
From Barnes & Noble
It was perhaps science's most meticulously constructed revolution. Charles Darwin first conceived of natural selection in March 1838; but two decades would pass before he began working in earnest on The Origin of Species. In this long interim, he tested, retested, modified, and sharpened his epoch-making theory of evolution. David Quamman's brief (45,000-word) biography of Darwin describes how this reluctant radical created an intellectual revolution at his own pace.

Publishers Weekly
It's easy to hear why PW named Grover Gardner Narrator of the Year in '05. He uses inflection, stress, rhythm and his rich vocal range to create an easy and often amusing conversational style. This is particularly appropriate for the modern idiom that makes Quammen's book so lively and readable. (He writes, for example, that Darwin did "a vast amount of scholarly nibbling and scribbling.") It took Darwin 21 years (and the threat that someone else might publish first) to publish his theory because almost all his contemporaries held theological views of nature, and his wife feared that she and Charles would not be united in heaven. Quammen explains that the synthesis of Darwin's theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel's genetic discoveries was essential to establish what now underpins all modern science. This short, highly readable book is as valuable as it is timely.