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Your next book? Why We Do It: Rethinking sex and the selfish gene is out this month (W. W. Norton). From Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (John Murray, 1859) onwards, Eldredge says, “it is blindingly obvious that a major portion of the progress made in understanding evolution has come through books, rather than through the more conventional scientific papers in journal literature. This is more true of evolutionary theory, I think, than any other branch of science.” Current read? He is enjoying Randal Keynes’s Annie’s Box (Fourth Estate, 2001). “Keynes has pulled off the near-impossible,” he says, “a thoroughly fresh treatment of Darwin.” Escapist reading? His current favourites are Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake, of whom he says, “I inhaled his Dortmunder novels.” Favourites? Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett (Oxford, 1946). “Superb stories of hunting man-eating tigers in northern India in the early 20th century by the man who later championed the conservation of tigers.” And Good Morning Blues (Random House, 1986), Albert Murray’s “incredible” narration of jazz icon Count Basie’s story, “It’s the best book I have ever read.”