Tangled Tree (Quammen) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[Quammen] is our greatest living chronicler of the natural world …[and] an exemplary guide; there are few writers so firmly on the side of the reader, who so solicitously request your patience …and delightedly hack away at jargon.… He keeps the chapters short, the sentences spring-loaded. There are vivacious descriptions on almost every page…Each section ends with a light cliffhanger. Quammen has the gift of Daedalus; he gets you out of the maze. And maybe to a bar. When not in the field, you can find Quammen and his subjects talking over a drink or two, over a combo sushi platter, over Turkish food, Chilean steaks and beers or just over a coke and pizza. It's a book born out of appetite and conviviality, an unpretentious delight in food and conversation—in being and thinking with others.
Parul Sehgal - New York Times


David Quammen proves to be an immensely well-informed guide to a complex story.… Indeed he is, in my opinion, the best natural history writer currently working. Mr. Quammen’s books… consistently impress with their accuracy, energy and superb, evocative writing.
David Barash - Wall Street Journal


Quammen has written a deep and daring intellectual adventure.… The Tangled Tree is much more than a report on some cool new scientific facts. It is, rather, a source of wonder
Thomas Levenson - Boston Globe


In The Tangled Tree, celebrated science writer David Quammen tells perhaps the grandest tale in biology.… He presents the science—and the scientists involved—with patience, candour and flair.
John Archibald - Nature


In David Quammen’s new page turner, The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life, the author reveals how new molecular techniques have come to revolutionize the way we understand evolutionary processes and how we classify life into coherent groups. In an accessible style that has won him accolades in the past, Quammen does a marvelous job of weaving together the scientific and human story of this revolution.… Quammen has once again crafted a delightful read on a complex and important subject.
Ivor T. Knight - Science


(Starred review) [E]xplores important [genetic] questions and …proves its author’s mastery in weaving various strands of a complex story into an intricate, beautiful, and gripping whole.
Publishers Weekly


Scientists are at the beginning of understanding the implications of [genetic] discoveries for human health. Verdict: Written in an accessible style, this book will interest… those curious about evolutionary history. —Caren Nichter, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin
Library Journal


(Starred review) With humor, clarity, and exciting accounts of breakthroughs and feuds, Quammen traces the painstaking revelation of life’s truly spectacular complexity.
Booklist


(Starred review) A masterful history of a new field of molecular biology…. A consistently engaging collection of vivid portraits of brilliant, driven, quarrelsome scientists in the process of dramatically altering the fundamentals of evolution, illuminated by the author's insightful commentary.
Kirkus Reviews