An awe-inspiring journey through the eons and across the globe in search of visible traces of evolution in the living creatures that have survived from earlier times.

In this groundbreaking book, prize-winning science writer Richard Fortey chronicles life's history not through the fossil record, but through the stories of organisms that have survived, almost unchanged, through geological time.

Fortey takes us on a journey to ancient worlds: on a moonlit beach in Delaware where the horseshoe crab shuffles its way through a violent romance, we catch a glimpse of life 450 million years ago. Along a stretch of Australian coastline, we bear witness to the sights and sounds that would have greeted a Precambrian dawn. And, in the dense rainforests of New Zealand, where the secretive velvet worm burrows into the rotting timber of the jungle floor, we marvel at a living fossil which has survived unchanged since before the break-up of Gondwana, the ancient supercontinent, over 150 million years ago.

Written with Fortey's customary sparkle and gusto, this wonderfully engrossing exploration of the world's oldest flora and fauna brilliantly combines the best science writing about the origins of life with an explorer's sense of adventure and a poet's wonder at the natural world.

About the Author

Richard Fortey spent his working life in palaeontology at the Natural History Museum, specialising in trilobites and becoming a world expert. He was elected President of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature. He has received the Frink Medal, the Michael Faraday Prize and the Lewis Thomas Prize for science writing, as well as the silver medal of the Zoological Society for science communication. He is the writer of eight previous science and nature books, including two Sunday Times bestsellers, all of which are still in print. He has presented many television programmes across the BBC and other channels.

Reviews

'I was thrilled by Survivors.... Reading Richard Fortey is always pure pleasure.' Bill Bryson

'Fortey has a unique way with the most humble of lifeforms and an infectious curiosity that can slide into near rapture' Evening Standard

'An epic, globe-circling scientific adventure story ... intriguing. Entertaining, accessible and intensely stimulating - and highly recommended' Sunday Times

'A great story, and no one is better equipped than Fortey to tell it. Excellent natural history' Guardian

'Unequivocally my book of the year, a happy mix of global travel, high art and very low life' Tim Radford, Books of the Year, Guardian

'An elegant celebration' TLS

Book Information
ISBN 9780007209873
Author Richard Fortey
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint HarperPress
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Weight(grams) 280g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 22mm