Galapagos: The Islands That Changed The World by Paul Stewart

I am going to the Galapagos! As such, I am reading all things (well, not exactly all things, but many things) that have been written over the years about the islands and the wildlife that exists there. While this is not a "must read", especially if you are interested in the science of it all, but it is a very good book to read if you want a short, not too scientific, but not a gloss over of the science of what was found there by Darwin, and why it mattered so much that he both found it and made sense of it. It is a photograph-rich volume, and if you want more than a fold out overview of the life in the water, on the land, and in the air, this is an easy way to give it all a once over, along with a brief description of the geology of the islands, and how that contributed to their uniqueness. It is definitely not scintillating reading, but it is also the best quick and straight forward overview that I have read so far.