Reviews

'I see this book almost as one long poem. The style might not be to everyone’s taste, but I think everybody would agree that it’s amazing. The use of language is breathtaking. You feel like you’re part of this extraordinary evolutionary process, both physical and biological. He stops it from just being drearily descriptive, and takes you on this wave of fantastic imagery—describing what was happening so that you can see it. Even if it’s some sort of ancient organism producing carbon dioxide or other biochemical process, it’s all done with such dynamism! You almost feel tired at the end. It’s very, very good.' 

-- Prof Maria Fitzgerald (Chair of the Royal Society Science Book Prize judging panel)


My favourite book of the year and maybe the decade.  Henry Gee is both brilliantly funny and brilliantly informative.  So many times I found myself  saying out loud “Oh my gawd” as some fact or information came at me.  We are not the end of evolution.  We are not even the summit of it.  We are mistaken about our place in the incredible and very long evolution and continuous breaking of new life forms on earth.  I shall read this book again and again.  You might find the early chapters a little dense because there are so many monocellular Latin forms of life.  Don’t be afraid to skip, move forward, the story gets better and better with incredible chapters on animal life and the evolution of mammals.  Learn your place in the Universe, which is both incredible and unlikely and puny.


'[A]n exuberant romp through evolution, like a modern-day Willy Wonka of genetic space. Gee’s grand tour enthusiastically details the narrative underlying life’s erratic and often whimsical exploration of biological form and function...[A] seamless and highly compressed account of life’s grand narrative, spanning its full duration of about 4.6 billion years. It is a tale of resilience and tenacity, and his writing is evocative and filled with humor.' 

-- Washington Post

'This history of life on Earth exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years...Gee is a marvelously engaging writer, juggling humor, precision, polemic and poetry to enrich his impossibly telescoped account...To weave such interconnected wonders into a book the size of a modest novel is essentially an exercise in precis and a bravura demonstration of the editor's art...Gee's final masterstroke as editor is to make human sense, and real tragedy, from his unwieldy story's glaring spoiler: that life dies at the end.'


'With dramatic flair, Henry Gee's sweeping new book ... tells the 4-billion year story of life on this planet and how it has been repeatedly shaped by geological, climatic and atmospheric forces. ... the reader is rewarded with a deeper appreciation of our own place in the grand scheme of life, where even the best-adapted species disappear within a time that is minute on the scale of evolution'. 


'This is the enlightening story of survival, illuminating the delicate balance in which life exists. Henry Gee's lyrical prose personifies creatures and conveys life's evolutionary steps with alluring intimacy.'


'This one is easy to sum up. Brilliant book. Buy it.'
 
 
'Gee's prose is so infectiously enthusiastic, and his tone so accessible, that you'll find yourself racing through as if you were reading a novel -- and you'll never find yourself scrambling for a good fact to wheel out at an awkward pause in conversation again.'


‘Once upon a time…’ The opening words of Henry Gee’s new book give notice that what follows will be a story – and a dazzling, beguiling story it is, told at an exhilarating pace... [a] hugely enjoyable page-turner'

-- Literary Review

'Mr Gee narrates a marvelous true story that unfolds as a series of exciting cliffhangers.'


With authority, humor, and detail, Gee, a paleontologist and senior editor of Nature, traces the progression of life on earth from its initial stirrings...readers will find this eye-opening book compelling for years to come.'

-- Booklist

'Gee (The Accidental Species), a paleontologist and senior editor at the science journal Nature, finds beauty in adversity in this eloquent account of how life evolved on Earth. ... Action-packed and full of facts, this well-told tale will delight lay readers.'
 
 
'[Gee's] lively, lyrical history covers 4.6 billion years, from bacteria through dinosaurs to mammals including Homo sapiens. Humans, Gee says, will eventually become a thin layer in sedimentary rock, to be eroded as dust that sinks to the ocean bottom.'
 
 
'Gee has a remarkable ability to describe how species and their environment have shaped one another. Throughout life's perilous journey, extinction and evolution swing in perfect rhythm. Gee neatly portrays this dance in a way that dissolves life's mind-boggling complexity into something digestible for everyone.'


'[T]his fast-paced and readable book is beautifully written, with small glimmers of whimsy and poetry peeking through the scientific scholarship. ... I think everyone will enjoy this book, especially those who get most of their reading done in smallish instalments on a speeding train or a lumbering bus, and students of cosmology, geology, zoology, or biology will learn a lot, and the evocative prose will absolutely delight even the most precise readers.' 


'This is a must-read book'


'A high-octane popular science book'


 'Through Gee’s masterful storytelling, he manages to give this scientific exploration of the universe and Earth an almost human sense of longing to be considered as more than the sum of its parts. You become emotionally invested through this sense of yearning and want to find out what happens next, as if Earth is your new favourite character. This identification with the planet keeps you flipping through to find out more about what may have previously been dull, scientific data. And the gravitas is just staggering.'


'Put the goggles on and tie down any loose items, because billions and millions of years are going to fly by in a matter of a few pages… but one never loses the big picture, not the sense of wonder at life’s ingenuity, ... Gee’s own sense of wonder at this, and his unbridled enthusiasm, shine through the entirety of A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, and he makes for an engaging, sometimes poetic but always easy-to-follow tour guide. Finally, one of the guides I always use for how much I like a non-fiction book is if/how much I read of the notes. I read them all. And highlighted large chunks (so don’t skip them).


'From the extremely distant past and the start of life itself, to what may be our last battle on this planet, it is poignant and critical to understand where we are now, and why we have the challenges that we face today ... 10/10'

-- World of Paleoanthropology


''Gee takes readers on a 4 and a half billion year journey of the origins of life on our planet. Not a coffee table book, but an articulate scientific trip for the layman through the remarkable and chaotic random events that ends with humans, who now have the ability to destroy it all.' 

'Readers should be chastened at his conclusion, shared by most scientists, that Homo sapiens is making its habitat—the Earth—progressively less habitable and will become extinct in a few thousand years. Gee writes lucid, accessible prose' 

-- Kirkus Reviews

'An excellent book that shows the grand evolution of planet Earth but written in a digestible way that makes it easy to understand. No wonder that this book won The Royal Society’s Book of the Year Award in 2022' 

- Medium.com 

 On the Dutch Edition

'De geschiedenis van het leven, zoals het daadwerkelijk is gebeurd, gaat miljarden jaren terug en kan dus een eindeloos lang verhaal worden. Henry Gee pakt het anders aan en maakt van deze bijzondere geschiedenis een spannend verslag dat je makkelijk kan onthouden en navertellen. Het is een overlevingsverhaal, vol cliffhangers, avonturen, helden en schurken, en dat allemaal gebaseerd op de laatste wetenschappelijke onderzoeken' 

 -- Stretto

On the German Edition 

 'Mit dem heiteren Fatalismus [derer], die in den ganz großen Linien denken, beantwortet [...] Henry Gee [...] die Frage, was das menschliche Vermächtnis sein wird' 

-- Süddeutsche Zeitung 

'Was sich da so alles an seltsamen Lebewesen auf unserem Planeten tummelte, wie das Leben selbst die Lebensbedingungen veränderte und es fünf Mal aus unterschiedlichsten Gründen zu globalen Massensterben kam, erzählt der leitende Nature-Redakteur höchst kenntnisreich und macht einmal mehr deutlich, wie kurz und vergänglich die Existenz des Menschen auf der Erde ist.'

-- Der Standard

On the Italian Edition 

See review in La Repubblica here

On the French Edition

See reviews in l'Express (Toronto) here and  Le Monde here

On the Brazilian Portuguese Edition

See review in O Estadao do São Paulo here and interview here

On the Greek Edition




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