Every Living Thing
The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
by Jason Roberts
A compelling parallel biography.
I guess everyone heard about Linnaeus in school, and those of us interested in the history of science are familiar with Buffon — but reading this book made me realize how little I knew about both of them and their attempts to organize the natural world. So I learned a lot, but also had a lot of fun, because it is very well written and surprisingly entertaining.
It is impressive how many written sources exist about the lives of these two characters, but I was equally impressed with how the author drew on them. He has an eye for interesting details, but does not overload the pages with too much dry information. As a result, it reads like a novel, or at least like narrative non-fiction.
Thanks to the publisher, Random House, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.
