Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science - Hardcover

"Readers of Brief Candle are in for many treats: lively prose from one of our greatest living writers; stimulating ideas on the nature of life and the human condition; and the opportunity to eavesdrop on the workings of an extraordinary mind, intellectually fierce yet personally generous." (Steven Pinker)

"[Dawkins] is a thunderously gifted science writer" (The Times)

"Dawkins's greatest gift has been as a lyricist ... His writing can still sparkle. He excels at capturing the scenes behind a scene, deftly explaining a scientific principle, capping a story with an amusing anecdote ... At such moments, one feels transported to a tweedy evening at Oxford, pouring the sherry as a charming senior faculty member holds court." (Nature)

"A highly readable account of the fascinating career of the science populariser ... Among its attractions are handy summaries of the central arguments of each of Dawkins's books ... It shows Dawkins in all his contradictory guises" (Prospect)

"Dawkins has written with passion, urgency and clarity" (Guardian)

In An Appetite for Wonder Richard Dawkins brought us his engaging memoir of his first 35 years. In Brief Candle in the Dark he continues his autobiography, following the threads that have run through the second half of his life so far.

He paints a vivid picture, coloured with wit, anecdote and digression, of the twenty-five postgraduate years he spent teaching at Oxford. He pays affectionate tribute to past colleagues and students, recalling with characteristic wry humour the idiosyncrasies of an establishment steeped in tradition and ritual. He invites us to share the life of a travelling scientist, from fieldwork on the Panama Canal to conferences in the company of some of the most prominent – and most eccentric – of the world’s scientific luminaries.

Most important of all, for the first time he reviews with fresh and stimulating insights the evolving narrative of his ideas about science over the course of his highly distinguished career as thinker, teacher and writer.