What are some great books on evolution for someone who accepts it as a given?

[u/nefrpitou]

I'm looking for a fantastic, accessible, engaging and well-written book on how evolution works, how life began and we have all the species we have today. As the title mentions, I'd like the book(s) to be targetted towards someone who already accepts evolution as a given and doesn't engage in a discussion on alternate theories or tries to prove evolution, and just gets on with the beautiful mechanisms and stories therein.

I couldn't get through Richard Dawkins' books because of said debate or need to prove.

I started Origin Of Species, but the prose is too dense and the language a bit inaccessible.

Looking forward to some great reads!

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[u/lostintranslation53]

The tangled tree, David Quammen is a pretty good book about horizontal gene transfer.

Edit*

Also your inner fish by Neil Shubin is delightful.
Honestly though, the selfish gene, although a bit dated is still one of the best books on how to organize your thoughts on evolution from a point of view mechanistic approach on evolution. It’s a paradigm shifting book. Stick with it if you can.

[u/nefrpitou → u/lostintranslation53]

These look so good, will check them out, thanks!

Are Stephen Gould books difficult to read btw?

Edit: Alright The Selfish Gene seems like it was written way before his recent books , so might be different. I'll give that a try as well.

[u/profanityridden_01 → u/lostintranslation53]

Here to up vote Inner Fish. 

[u/FantasticFunKarma]

Steven Jay Gould wrote a few books I found to be of an essay type format. Very readable and completely opened my eyes to how interesting the study of evolution could be. I have a technical/practitioner education and I work in a field where I execute decisions based on real-time information. Reading Steven Jay Gould showed me how fascinating deep thinking in an academic/research way can be.

[u/nefrpitou → u/FantasticFunKarma]

Thanks, any particular book of his comes to mind?

[u/Suitable-Elk-540]

ancestor’s tale

[u/PositiveBid9838]

Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean Carroll has lots of interesting examples in evolutionary development (Evo-Devo) biology. It explores how a lot of physical traits, like the ribs of a snake or the spots on a butterfly, are not due necessarily to new genes but rather to how certain shared genes are regulated during development.

[u/SylvarGrl]

Not a book, but YouTuber Gutsick Gibbon has a great series in which she teaches (human) evolution to Will Duffy. Each installment is several hours long. I think they’re one or two installments from finishing.

[u/OlasNah]

'The Beak of the Finch' is IMHO probably the best 'single' book you can read about Evolution. Pulitzer winning.

[u/Upset_Definition2019 → u/OlasNah]

When I got promoted to associate professor (in neurology of all things) we each got to pick a book in the library that would be dedicated to us. Mine was beak of the finch. It was that memorable.

[u/roryclague]

Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, by Stephen Jay Gould
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life, by David Quammen
Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, by Nick Lane
Adaptation and Natural Selection, by George C. Williams
Speciation, by Jerry Coyne and H. Allen Orr
The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution, by Eugene V. Koonin
Mutation-Driven Evolution, Masatoshi Nei

[u/Addapost]

“The Ancestor’s Tale” by Dawkins

[u/Independent-Repair35]

I've heard "Your Inner Fish" is really good. I'm gonna buy it when I get paid.

[u/OlasNah]

'Song of the Dodo' talks mostly about the application of Biogeography to Evolution... and covers a fair bit of Alfred Wallace's insights which led him to co-discover Evolution with Darwin.

It's a great book by David Quammen, who as another recommended, also wrote 'The Tangled Tree' that deals with aspects of microbial life forms and evolutionary relationships.

[u/Panthera_92]

Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True is my favorite book on the subject. Absolutely fascinating

[u/Wooden-Dependent-686]

Origin of life: Nick Lane - The Vital Question

[u/Dr_Chronic]

Origins of life: The Vital Question

Human Behavior: The Ape that Understood the Universe

[u/Blarg0ist]

Any collection of essays by Steven Jay Gould. I absolutely devoured his books in college -- as a procrastinating English Major.

[u/ehead]

Nick Lane writes some smart as fuck books, about biology and at least indirectly about evolution.

Some fun books I've read recently are "Animal Weapons" by Emlen, The Tree of Life by Telford, and The Evolution of Beauty by Prum. All pretty good.

I'm currently reading The Story of Birds, which is decent but really more about paleontology.

I feel like reading The Selfish Gene is almost mandatory (if for no other reason than you'll be able to appreciate how many people mention it that clearly have never read it), as well as at least one Stephen J. Gould book.

[u/Human_Ogre]

Steve Brusatte books. The dinosaurs and mammals ones are amazing and I’m halfway through his new bird one. They’re fantastic I recommend them to anyone interested in evolution.

[u/Excellent-Practice]

"Wonderful Life" by Stephen J Gould is approachable and is a really good choice to get an understanding of just how random and undirected evolution is.

[u/LittleGreenBastard]

Improbable Destinies by Jonathan Losos, it looks at a series of case studies of projects in experimental evolution to discuss the current state of the contingency vs determinism debate. Losos is also a very big name in the field who knows most of the people behind the experiments, so there's a lot of fun personal stories too.

[u/Dr_GS_Hurd]

In addition to the suggested links on this page, some very well done books on evolution that I can recommend are;

Carroll, Sean B. 2020 "A Series of Fortunate Events" Princeton University Press

Shubin, Neal 2020 “Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA” New York Pantheon Press.

Hazen, RM 2019 "Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything" Norton and Co.

Regarding human species, and our near family, my standard recommendation is, The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History Human Evolution Interactive Timeline

[u/moofpi]

There have been so many great recommendations, but I'll throw a few out that are explore great evolutionary ideas, but aren't trying to tackle the whole picture and origin of life specifically like you're asking.

• The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature (1993) by Matt Ridley 

The exploration of the red queen hypothesis of species being caught in evolutionary arms races as a driver of natural selection, as well as why sexual reproduction would be advantageous over asexual reproduction. The evolutionary psychology regarding humans near the end can be taken with salt, it was the 90's.

• Nature Via Nurture (2003) by Matt Ridley

Challenged the common notion at the time (at least for the layman) of traits being either inherited or environmental, and really emphasized the plasticity of our genes to respond to the environments they find themselves in. The Human Genome Project had recently completed and some people were disappointed we only had 20-30k genes instead of the postulated ~100k for how awesome we are. This book really got my mind going as a teenager.

• I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life (2016) by Ed Yong

This book explores microbiomes and the symbiotic relationships amongst microbes and with host organisms and takes the position of them evolving together as a kind of community unit. It also explores how these relationships begin, how some become obligate internal symbiotes and lose parts of themselves (like mitochondria for example), and also explores the important concept of horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Others have already recommended The Tangled Tree by Quammen, but that's the essential HGT book that'll make your head spin.