This Is Life
What is life? How did it first appear? Where else in the universe might we find it?
In THIS IS LIFE, acclaimed science communicator and Stephen Hawking’s former Ph.D. student Christophe Galfard takes you on a wonder-filled journey through the complete history of life on earth, from its birth and the mysterious colonies of bacteria that lived billions of years ago, through the extreme evolutionary turns that saw sea scorpions grow to the size of dogs and trees covered in scales, to the visionary discoveries of the past two centuries that have allowed us to understand what we, humans, and all other living organisms really are.
Through brilliant storytelling and delightful humour, Galfard makes the secrets of the living world accessible to all. THIS IS LIFE will transform the way you see the world, and your place in it.
Reviews
What a fun book! This is Big History of the biggest scale, weaving together cosmology, fossils, genetics, and geology to tell the story of why we are here. The breadth of science covered in this book is vast, but the tone is light and conversational. Reading Christophe Galfard’s prose feels like you’re having a chat with a friendly scientist over a coffee – a chat that ends with a grand appreciation for how the physical universe enables our own existence
I can’t remember when I last enjoyed a biology book so much. Christophe Galfard brings his exploration of where we come from a species to life with remarkable storytelling
A wonderful, compelling read. I loved the integration of modern science with the history of science. Few popular science books are so unputdownable – I read it in two days
Erwin Schrodinger wrote a book called What is Life?, with a question mark because he didn’t know. Christophe Galfard has written This is Life, with no question mark because he does [. . .] ‘[. . .] This is a gorgeous, glorious romp through the sciences, from physics to genetics to geology to paleontology, through many other ologies, to address the biggest question of all: What is life? The reader is in safe hands with Christophe Galfard, whose charming, expressive writing leads you gently through some of the greatest discoveries humans have ever made
With child-like curiosity, Galfard sets out to explain just about everything we know about the world and how it began, from the birth of the sun to the microbiology of our own cells. He is a marvellously irrepressible guide, the science teacher you'll wish you’d had. Perhaps his greatest achievement in this hugely ambitious book is to remind us of the wonderment of life, and how extraordinary it is that something exists at all
A thoroughly original, enjoyable read, written with much humanity and humour, Christophe Galfard's book takes the reader across eons of time from the first chemical building blocks to the emergence of the vast zoo of life on Earth we know today, capturing all the trials and challenges along the way
This Is Life is peppered with delightful and unexpected anecdotes. Through some elegant tricks of perspective Galfard manages to illuminate the elusive subject of “life” – from the shortest instant to the age of the universe, from the microscopic to the cosmic – while always maintaining a fully human focus. The editors of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would do well to base their next entry for Earth on this book
Simple, personal, alluring, Galfard’s prose teaches as it pulls you in. And his is a history of science that celebrates, rather than neglects women
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