ONE BEETLE TOO MANY

Much to his father's consternation, Charles Darwin's passion focused on the natural world. A childhood collector who floundered through his school years, Darwin later accepted the chance of a lifetime to travel as naturalist on a British expedition to survey the coast of South America. That, of course, was the famous voyage of HMS BEAGLE. His observations, including one notebook titled “The Natural History of Babies,” continued throughout his life. With a precise voice and steady pace, narrator Stafford Clark-Price catalogs Darwin's collections, revelations, and questions about what he was observing. Clark-Price’s interest and curiosity are as vivid as Darwin's must have been. His narration maintains an intensity that is on the edge of bursting into full-fledged excitement. A.R. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2010]