Remarkable Creatures
The author of ‘Remarkable Creatures’, Sean B. Carroll is a professor at University of Winsconsin. Whenever I read a book like this, I couldn’t help but think if only I have a professor like this when I was in college. The author started with the goal to write a book like the ‘Microbe Hunters’ by Paul de Kruif. I think he has reached the goal and beyond. This is an excellent book on major discoveries in human evolution, up to the most recent discovery on the role of mitochondrial DNA in this regard. The book takes a ’story-telling’ approach and is so successful that I was compelled to read through it without stopping. Both the ‘remarkable creatures’ and ‘microbe hunters’ are few of the most gripping books I have ever read about science.
I remember I was taking a flight to Tainan from Taipei several years ago when I was reading Microbe Hunters. It was a day with terrible weather, some big thunderstorm was striking the Tainan area. When we were close to Tainan, and I was totally immersed in the book, the airplane suddenly descended and made a sharp turn. I was thinking, oh my god, are we being hijacked or are we going to have an accident? And then I thought, well, think of the good side, if we are going to have an accident, at least I will be dying with a remarkable book. It is just too bad if there will be an accident, but it is even worse if I am going to die with some nonsense books! Luckily, neither of these two things happened. It was just because of the bad weather, and the airplane couldn’t land and had to return to Taipei. This teaches me a good lesson that whenver I am taking a flight, I should have some good books with me. Somehow that makes me feel safer.
