[5] Measure: I think you’ll find a lot of differences between The Tangled Bank and Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea. For one thing, this is a textbook, in a good way: I have the room to dig deep into some concepts that might seem a little sketchy in a less in-depth treatment. I also have the luxury of lots of photographs and illustrations.

Another difference is time. I wrote Evolution eight years ago. The discoveries that have been made since then are amazing. I try whenever possible to illustrate different parts of evolutionary biology with examples, and most of the examples I use come from the past couple years.

[12, 17] New England Bob: For a textbook, The Tangled Bank is pretty affordable. A typical biology textbook may cost $150. One key difference between trade books and textbooks is the artwork. Typical tradebooks have a few line drawings and maybe a few black and white photographs. My textbook has lots of full-page artwork, including original paintings, some excellent photography, and original diagrams that will be able to communicate some of the concepts better than my prose alone can. This kind of book requires artists, illustrators, photo researchers, and high-quality paper stock and printing. But I am hoping that this will be the sort of textbook that people actually buy for their own enjoyment. That’s how I wrote it.

I can’t comment too much about Dawkins’s book, not having yet seen it. But I would hope that people would not automatically look at this as an either/or situation.

[16] Kitty’s B—- I’ll be ready to sign.

[19] Mel–You’re right on the cost of textbooks, but I would never write something dry. The Tangled Bank has kinky sex, cannibalistic fathers, dangerous fossil hunting in the Arctic, and more.

[20] Arnold–Very glad to hear you like the new incarnation. Carl Buell took a vague idea of mine, some dry paleontological literature, and created a lost world.