Literary Nonfiction. Natural History. Translated from the French by Nigel Spencer. With all the attention given to "creationism" in the news these days, Jean-Pierre Rogel felt it was important to show how Darwin's concept of natural selection can be seen in action in everyday situations. Beginning with a familiar cottage scene that includes squirrels, loons, salmon and bears, Rogel expands his scope to explore the emerging field of evolutionary developmental biology, showing how genes play a role in the extraordinary diversity of the plant and animal kingdom. Readers may be surprised to discover which animal is most closely related to whales, how nature makes a fin into a paw, how salmon have adapted to gaps in fishing nets, and what really sets humans apart from chimpanzees.

Author City: Montreal, QC CAN

Jean-Pierre Rogel is a reporter for Découverte, a popular science program on Radio-Canada, the French-language counterpart to CBC Television. He also writes for Québec Science magazine. He is a passionate naturalist and has written extensively about how and where one can find the evidence for evolution, and how everything on earth is connected in a web of being. Born and educated in France, he immigrated to Canada in the mid-1970s and has since been living in Montreal. EVOLUTION: THE VIEW FROM THE COTTAGE is his fourth book.

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