Gould was already past 50 when he wrote this 1995 collection, yet his writing shows that he retained "every atom of the enthusiasm in my five-year-old self for any item of knowledge". In these 34 essays  exercises in "science trying to understand life"  he ranges widely, across literature ("a personal love"), astronomy ("a childhood passion"), dinosaurs (at school he was nicknamed "Fossil Face"), social themes (the importance of museums), eugenics, and of course evolutionary biology. Gould (who died in 2002) was a masterly essayist, moving effortlessly from a seemingly insignificant detail to far-reaching scientific themes. Although Tennyson's "In Memoriam" contains the much-cited line "Nature, red in tooth and claw", Gould's reading finds not a criticism of science but a realisation that it offers no consolation to the poet in his grief. Elsewhere he criticises the commercialisation and dumbing down of museums, and enjoys the "wonderful" dinosaurs in Jurassic Park but scorns the film's plot: "Pap and drivel of the worst kind."