SOURCE: Vines, Gail. “Sermons in Stones.” New Statesman 125, no. 4312 (29 November 1996): 48.

In the following review, Vines discusses possible reasons behind the popularity of Gould's books about evolution and science and offers a mixed assessment of Life's Grandeur.

The palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould is a publishing phenomenon. The author of more than 200 evolutionary essays collected in eight volumes, he has produced another full-length book [Life's Grandeur,] to follow his bestselling Wonderful Life. Why do people buy his books in such vast numbers? Granted, Gould is a talented writer, but why should so many people want to read about evolution?

Intriguingly, it is one of the few topics that sells science in the high street. Cosmology, consciousness and quantum physics also shift books, while worthy tomes about chemistry and engineering languish on the shelf. Could it be that as we struggle to make sense of Stephen Hawking or Richard Dawkins we...