«The Richness of Life» is a big book (600+) pages, and requires attentive reading. The book is a comprehensive, commemorative volume presenting a representative selection of the essays of Stephen Jay Gould. Despite the fact that his essays in the area of Natural History are very scientific Gould has always enjoyed a wide readership and his premature death was lamented. The main focus of nearly all essays is Darwin's theory of evolution, either through the fossil record or diversity of animal forms. A number of essays are very theoretical. I did not enjoy reading this volume as much as I had anticipated. It appears to be rather heavy-handed. The original volumes of essays published in Gould's lifetime seem to be lighter and more readable. ( )

I probably didn't understand it, but I have not found this collection of essays illuminating as I had expected. I didn't even find them interesting. Sorry about that :( ( )

A varied collection. Ranging form the short and punchy columns he published in Scientific American to extracts from his highly technical works.

As I have previous remarked, I much prefer the former over the latter. For me, when Gould uses three words instead of one I wince and don't particularly marvel at the poetry. But others do.

His writing sometimes lacks the brevity, clarity and force of Dawkins and I can occasionally get tangled up in how he is delivering his message to the detriment of the message itself.

From now on I will indulge myself in his pithy essays. ( )

Gould is a more prolific author since his death than some people are in their entire lives. This book contains a collection of various essays on natural history and evolution contained in his prior works, both academic and popular. Everything in this book has been previously published, but really, who among Gould fans could resist picking up this book? A very human work, accompanied by a delightful glimpse of the man through Oliver Sack's forward. Some of the academic writing was heavy sledding for me, however it made sense in the context of the book. ( )