ABSTRACT
This is a book with seemingly exorbitant ambitions. Its subject matter is all of the following (and a lot more besides): beluga whales, natterjack toads, Siberian tigers, hermit crabs, orangutans, meerkats, skip-jack tuna, coral reefs, oak trees, human DNA, sea horses, El Niño, volcanic eruptions, photosynthesis, Mount Everest, cystic fibrosis, tectonic plates, the Marianas Trench, human hearts, quarks, mangrove swamps, ice caps, North Pacific fur seals, wolves, transgenic organisms, Hadley cells, botanical gardens, the Sahara Desert, rainforest ecosystems, haemoglobin, pebble beaches, wild orchids, manatees, intestinal bacteria, meiosis, the Humboldt squid, blueberries, iguanas, bumblebees, conjoint twins, oil reserves, dinosaur fossils, beavers, elephants, the jet stream, buzzards, igneous rock, gravity, ocean currents, algae, weeds and hot springs. I could go on, but you get the idea. My aim in the pages that follow is to make sense of nature – that ‘buzzing, blooming confusion’, as the philosopher William James once so beautifully described it.
