Thursday 6 September 2012

The Evolution of Inanimate Objects - My review.


The Evolution of Inanimate Objects: The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Darwin (1857-1879) by Harry Karlinsky



I don’t usually do book reviews because I can never think of clever things to say. But, I enjoyed this book so much I thought I’d give it a go.

Loved it. I read it over a couple of days, that’s quick for me; it is a short book, and enjoyed every bit.

The Evolution of Inanimate Objects: The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Darwin (1857-1879) by Harry Karlinsky is a novel and does not pretend to be anything else. Thomas Darwin the son of Charles Darwin did not exist. Having said that, the book is so well researched and written that you would think it is biographical.

Thomas is a man who is obsessed with cutlery, he believes that cutlery, and other inanimate objects, evolve of themselves, as with plants and animals. Whilst at University he presents papers on the subject and of course he is well received at first because of his Fathers’ reputation. Soon though people begin to realize he’s a bit bonkers. He ends up dying of Tuberculosis in a Canadian asylum, at the age of twenty-one. 

The research carried out by Karlinsky into the works Darwin and others is phenomenal. The book is an easy read and humorous; it had me laughing out loud, in public, on a couple of occasions.

There are some very good illustrations in the book.

I read it in Kindle on my iPad, but felt I would like to have had a hard copy so that I could ‘feel’ the book and see how it was laid out. The benefit of reading it on iPad is that you can enlarge the illustrations, which you can’t do with a hard copy.

It is one of the best books I have read this year, and I would recommend to anybody. Well done Harry. More please.



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