The Wonder of Life on Earth

Discover the story of life on our planet as you have never seen it before, from the winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2022.
The perfect gift for curious minds.
In 30 bite-size chapters with detailed illustrations, highly respected science writer and Nature editor Henry Gee charts the incredible, unlikely story of life on our planet.
Life began billions of years ago, as tiny bubbles sheltering from boiling, toxic seawater began to spring up on the ocean floor. What follows is a story of survival against all odds: faced with supervolcanoes, toxic air and asteroids - life adapted.
The Wonder of Life on Earth by the author of A Very Short History of Life On Earth boils down billions of years of evolution into 80 pages, giving a broad overview that is peppered with fascinating facts about individual life forms and evolutionary innovations.
The astonishing artwork from talented botanical illustrator and designer Raxenne Maniquiz brings to life a cavalcade of strange and marvellous creatures: travel back in time to look inside bacteria and the first cells, to the planet's first trees and plants, to the odd, soft-bodied rangeomorphs, the concurrent evolution of the egg and the seed, and on to armoured fishes, dinosaurs, nimble mammals and endlessly adaptable apes and primates.
Henry's immersive, engaging writing makes it easy to understand complex processes like the carbon cycle, natural selection, fossilisation and the galactic fluctuations that have built and shaped our planet and its inhabitants.
This astonishing and readable natural history is perfect for anyone age 10 and above, and adult readers looking for an accessible introduction to the biggest topic around: LIFE.
Praise for A Very Short History of Life on Earth by Henry Gee:
'Exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years . . . [making] clear sense out of very complex narratives'
The Times

Dr Henry Gee was born in 1962. He was educated at the universities of Leeds and Cambridge. For more than three decades he has been a writer and editor at the international science journal Nature. His previous books include The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution; Across The Bridge: Understanding the Origin of the Vertebrates; Deep Time: Cladistics, the Revolution in Evolution; Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome; The Science of Middle-Earth, The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire and (with Luis V. Rey) A Field Guide to Dinosaurs. In 2022 he won the Royal Society Science Book Prize for A Very Short History of Life on Earth. He lives in Cromer, Norfolk, with his family and numerous pets.
Raxenne Maniquiz is a graphic designer and illustrator from the Philippines. Her work depicts images of native botanicals and endemic species from her country, appearing in brand campaigns, product packaging, apparel design, stationery, and published materials for companies such as Adobe and Bloomberg. In 2021, she won the prestigious Young Gun award-an international, portfolio-based competition that identifies and celebrates today's vanguard of young creatives.