I read this, as many others may have done because I was interested by 'The God Delusion' and wanted to delve a little deeper into Dawkins' impressive thought processes. While 'The God Delusion' is much in the limelight and undoubtedly opening up discussion on the issues involved, this book is of an entirely different calibre.

I found 'The God Delusion' well argued but inclined to go off on tangents and not particularly well structured. This book is entirely different in that its cogency and clarity are unfailing throughout. It is much less self-conscious and more satisfying and thought provoking as a result. I found it entertaining and accessible to the lay reader at all times, and yet never condescending or over-simplified in content.

Here is a rare writer who is not only quite obviously an exceptional thinker in his own field but has the communicative skill to make that field understandable and fascinating to the general reader.

The only thing I would have preferred was less discussion of taxonomy and more discussion of the 'argument' that there simply has not been enough time for evolution to have got to where it has.

RELEASE NOTES:

Off to Oz!

I got up this morning, looking forward to an ordinary day. Firstly, there was a bill to pay. Secondly, the car wouldn't start - the battery is cactus, and this town is so small there's nowhere to buy a car battery. Thirdly, I raced to the post office (on foot, in the stinking heat) expecting a parcel of live plants from a mail-order nursery, and instead got given a small, flat package. Mystified, I slogged home through the suffocating heat and ripped open the parcel to find this wonderful book! It's the first good thing to happen to me today (actually for a few days), and I really, really appreciate it, Flambard! I'm halfway through another book which is taking me a surprising amount of time to read and I have half a dozen other books waiting for my attention, but I promise I'll put this not at the bottom of the TBR pile (probably close to the top) and get to it soon. I heard about this book some time ago, and have wanted to read it ever since.

And thanks to Flambard for the lovely postcard-bookmark! Is that one of your own photos? Spectacular work!

Well, I got greedy and read it as soon as I'd finished the book I was on when I received it. I started off being curious, as I'd read "The God Delusion" before and thought I knew what to expect of Richard Dawkins' pen (or MacIntosh, as it turns out). I thought it would be a good book. I was wrong.

It didn't take long to be in a state of growing excitement, and from there it didn't take long to reach a "rapture of the mind". Everything in the book was lucid and comprehensible. Everything in the book logically progressed from subject to subject. Everything in the book demanded that you read with your brain engaged, rather than in overdrive, which I really, really like in an author. And desipte my eclectic education and reading, quite a number of things in the book were new to me. I thrilled during the section on the computerised evolution Dawkins indulged in. I thrilled when he had first his toddler than a computer routine randomly trying to write "Methinks 'tis like a weasel". I thrilled, unlike Flambard, during the section on taxonomy. And I was in ecstasy during the section on reproduction and evolution in clays. What biologist talks about clay? This is fascinating and enthralling stuff, not the less because I live in an area that is perched precariously on one of the biggest lumps of clay in the world.

I'm PCing this for quite a while. When I've read it a few times, and sent it out on a ring, and lent it to a friend of certain interests whom I haven't managed to turn into a bookcrosser, then maybe I'll think about setting it free. But for a good while, it's going to sit right here with me. I was wrong about this being a good book. If I were the book and I overheard that, I'd be hugely insulted.