Beak of the Finch chosen for Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads

Mon, 12/05/2005 - 11:48am by amy

Jonathan Weiner's The Beak of the Finch was selected as the focus of the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads 2006. An eleven-member selection team, composed of community members, teachers, students and librarians from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area chose this 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winner Tuesday night from a group of three books, all of which centered on the theme Revolutions in Science: the people, theories, explanations and discoveries that challenged our thinking and changed the world. The Beak of the Finch traces the efforts of Peter and Rosemary Grant, two scientists whose groundbreaking research on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution involved decades of study of thousands of birds on a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos.

Written for the layperson, the book traces the Grant’s observations of Darwin’s finches and the evolutionary impact of climatic and environmental changes on this population, as the scientists obtain amazing new understanding and insights into the world around them. The Cleveland Plain Dealer describes The Beak of the Finch as “an exceptional book, artfully crafted, lucid and richly descriptive. It is the best exploration of evolution written in recent years. It conveys a powerful insight into life that helps us to understand the fundamental forces of nature and our relationship to the world about us.”

The other books under consideration were Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love, by Dava Sobel and A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth, by Samantha Weinberg.