The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner

This book won the Pulitzer Prize the year that it was published, which was almost 30 years ago. It is a book about two biologists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, who were studying rapid changes in the birds on the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin observed the same creatures in the 1830s. The Grants, along with their investigative team, spent decades capturing ground finches on Daphne Major, banding them, taking measurements and blood samples, and then observing their mating (amongst several other features). They were able to see adaptive change happen almost literally before their eyes, putting what Darwin hypothesized happened into very specific time, place, and reason as to why finches change, flourish, and flounder over the course of years, not millennia. Throughout the book, Weiner jumps effortlessly from Darwin’s world to that of the Grants. He is able to juxtapose the two experiences both in Galapagos and back at their respective homes perfectly, highlighting both their methods of research in various, yet specific, ways. This is a great peak at evolution in action, even if you are not about to go to the Galapagos to see it for yourself.