The prose of this book is smooth and lets you read effortlessly. This well-told tale is light enough that it could be enjoyed by a high schooler or by a vacationer on the beach. The Darwin story is one that already has a good plot, and Quammen tells it well. Since the 1980s, there has been a great deal of scholarship on Darwin as more accurate and complete editions of his letters and journals have been published. Janet Brown in particular has written a multi-volume comprehensive biography of Darwin. Quammen has benefited from this recent scholarship, and he has boiled it down to a page-turner.

  Here is a sample sentence to show Quammen's style: "Essentialism and natural theology were as thick in the air of Darwin's world as coal smoke and the scent of horse manure" (p. 33).

  One aspect of recent scholarship that Quammen has glossed over is the evidence that Darwin agreed with the creepier ideas of Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinism and eugenics. Instead, the book ends with the passing of a lovable, eccentric old man who doted on his grandchildren and had, in the end, gotten it right. For a book that examines the darker side of Darwin before deciding that his positive qualities outweigh that darker side, read Levine's Darwin Loves You .

  Quammen largely skips the early half of Darwin's life and begins when the Beagle returns to Britain. This makes sense, as the later Darwin is why we know about Darwin at all: it is where the intellectual struggle over evolution begins. Quammen does spend time on the theories of evolution and natural selection themselves, and he presents the evidence for them well enough to give the reader a sense of how strong that evidence is. In other words, this book would be good for someone flirting with creationism. The next to last chapter chronicles how the theory of natural selection failed to convince many scientists until the development of the Modern Synthesis in the mid-20th century.

  Reluctant is careful with its sources and provides good notes, bibliographies, and an index, so it can be the launching off point for the budding scholar. In preparing for this book, Quammen read most of Darwin's other writings, and he comes to the conclusion that the only two books that hold up well today are the journal of the Beagle (the 1845 edition, called Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology ... arranges the Galapagos evidence with an eye toward the theory of evolution) and Origin of Species . Quammen even reviews the editorial differences among the many editions of Origin of Species , and he advises readers to look for a facsimile of the first edition.