Towering American paleontologist Gould (1941-2002) notes that this seventh volume of essays marks 20 years of his writing a column for Natural History magazine without missing a single month. Most of the 34 essays are from those columns. They peruse many issues surrounding evolution, time, change, and history. His topics include the late birth of a flat earth, the tooth and claw centennial, left snails and right minds, dinomania, the smoking gun of eugenics, a humongous fungus is among us, magnolias from Moscow, and four metaphors in three generations. Belknap Press, an imprint of Harvard University Press, is keeping these valuable contributions to popular science available in this series of new editions. The 1995 edition was published by Harmony Books. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)