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The Genetic Book of the Dead

A Darwinian Reverie

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The Genetic Book of the Dead

By: Richard Dawkins, Jana Lenzová
Narrated by: Richard Dawkins
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Bloomsbury presents The Genetic Book of the Dead, written and read by Richard Dawkins.


From one of the world’s great science writers, a book that explores the deepest principles of evolutionary history.

In this groundbreaking new approach to the evolution of all life, Richard Dawkins shows how the body, behaviour, and genes of every living creature can be read as a book – an archive of the worlds of its ancestors. A perfectly camouflaged desert lizard has a desiccated landscape of sand and stones ‘painted’ on its back. Its skin can be read as a description of ancient deserts in which its ancestors survived – and, before that, of the worlds of its more remote ancestors: a genetic book of the dead.

But such descriptions are more than skin-deep. The fine chisels of Darwinian natural selection carve their way through the very warp and woof of the body, into every biochemical nook and corner, into every cell of every living creature. A zoologist of the future, presented with a hitherto-unknown animal, will be able to reconstruct the worlds that shaped its ancestors, to read its unique ‘book of the dead’.

The book is filled with fascinating examples of the power of Darwinian natural selection to build exquisite perfection, paradoxically accompanied by what look like gross blunders. Along the way, Dawkins dismantles influential criticisms of the ‘gene’s-eye-view’ of life. And, to end with a provocative sting in the tail, the author asks there is a sense in which all our ‘own’ genes can be seen as a gigantic colony of cooperating viruses?

From the author of The Selfish Gene and The Ancestor’s Tale comes a revolutionary book that unlocks the door to an ancient past, seen through wholly new eyes.©2024 Richard Dawkins (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Animals Biological Sciences Evolution Evolution & Genetics Genetics Nature & Ecology Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science
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Critic reviews

Richard Dawkins’s lovely new book is an old-fashioned miscellany of such zoological surprises... Dawkins’s true aim, the literary evocation of wonder at the vast and improbable grandeur of nature, is consistently achieved
A book that will inform, intrigue and fascinate its readers
A joyful celebration... [Dawkins'] ability to tell the glorious tale of evolution in action remains unrivalled.
[An] illuminating deep dive into genes, bodies and Darwinian natural selection. Highly readable and brilliantly illustrated
Overflowing with the beauty of nature, the beauty of language, and the beauty of ideas.
Dazzling in originality and scope, with beautiful illustrations, this is a wonderful celebration of the power of natural selection. Richard Dawkins reveals with brilliant clarity the imprint on organisms of their evolutionary past.
The ingenuity of evolution is infinite, a fact that fascinates Richard Dawkins as much as it fascinated Charles Darwin. Inside each organism he finds rich palimpsests chronicling the history of life itself.
Once again, Richard Dawkins asks us to look at the living world in a totally novel way: Every organism carries, in its genes, a record of the past environments in which its ancestors survived. This brilliant new way of interpreting nature opens our eyes to both the past and the future.
Written with typical verve and panache, Richard Dawkins’s The Genetic Book of the Dead makes a brilliant
contribution to the public understanding of evolution using our most up-to-date understanding of genetics. It
will enthral, surprise, and challenge you. Read it!
This book is a summation of the ideas of the author who brought us "memes" and "selfish genes". Richard Dawkins’s lucid prose will change the way you think about your evolutionary past.
The deployment of the conceit of genes looking backward in time is clever and well done. A piece of vivid popular science.
In this stunning book, Richard Dawkins explains how biologists can understand the evolutionary history of organisms by reading their genome and phenotype. These readouts reveal the past lives our ancestors lived while also predicting those of our descendants – well at least those that will be successful. Dawkins is the most accomplished science communicator of the past half century, and this book is a masterpiece of popular science writing. A truly wonderful and inspiring read.
Writing with his customary clarity and verve, and with beautiful illustrations, Dawkins takes us on a journey from our ancestor’s environments to the way we are today. A great read.
Another, and perhaps the most wide-ranging yet, of Richard Dawkins’s joyously exuberant expeditions into the staggering complexity of the living world – together with all the past worlds that have led up to it, and the mechanics that this has involved. A celebration – and written with all his wonderful grace and humour, informality, generosity, and personal involvement.
All stars
Most relevant
Listening to the author provides depth the printed words can’t and it’s a privilege to be able to do so anytime on demand.
Quite what SOF will make of it I couldn’t say but my ears lapped up the stuff and were thoroughly enriched by it.
I love the repetition of key themes and words from sciences original meme coder and I will take palimpsest with me in my future hand luggage.
It’s all good stuff this.
Avoid hesitation.

Lighting the path

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If you’re going to worship anything, make it Dawkins. He makes incredibly complex scientific thinking into something ordinary people can understand.
This book is as good as every other he has written.

Dawkins is god.

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Just finished this fantastic book & let me say that it’s a brilliant addition to the Dawkins collection. It’s up there with the Selfish Gene & the Blind Watchmaker. Trying to pick out key parts that I found enjoyable wont do it justice as there’s simply too many topics covered, but if you’re interested in learning about genetics & Darwinian evolution in an interesting, humorous & eloquent way then this work is it.

Dawkins is simply fantastic

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Simply fascinating. A lot to take on board but you can jump
Around and still learn and enjoy as it always related in serial.

Simply fascinating.

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Richard Dawkins delivers another outstanding book. I was fascinated from the start, with this work complementing and building on previous titles. Highly recommended!

Superb!

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