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An Appetite for Wonder  By  cover art

An Appetite for Wonder

By: Richard Dawkins
Narrated by: Richard Dawkins,Lalla Ward
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Publisher's summary

In his first memoir, Richard Dawkins shares a rare view into his early life, his intellectual awakening at Oxford, and his path to writing The Selfish Gene. He paints a vivid picture of his idyllic childhood in colonial Africa, and later at boarding school, where he began his career as a skeptic.

Arriving at Oxford in 1959, Dawkins began to study zoology and was introduced to some of the university's legendary mentors as well as its tutorial system. It's to this unique educational system that Dawkins credits his awakening. In 1973, provoked by the dominance of group selection theory and inspired by the work of William Hamilton, Robert Trivers, and John Maynard Smith, he began to write a book he called, jokingly, "my best seller". It was, of course, The Selfish Gene.

This is an intimate memoir of the childhood and intellectual development of the evolutionary biologist and world-famous atheist and how he came to write what is widely held to be one of the most important books of the 20th century.

©2013 Richard Dawkins (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers

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The Memoir of a Genius

Dawkins from boy to young man, grad student to professor, science author to prolific and ardent spokesperson of disbelief. This book is the memoir of one of the greatest evolutionary biologists and an interesting character indeed. Very little science can be found inside, but you will get the full story of how Richard Dawkins came to be who he is today.

This is not exactly fascinating stuff unless you're a Dawkins fan, so I'd advise you to keep that in mind. If you are a Dawkins fan, it's a worthwhile read.

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18 people found this helpful

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Only for Dawkins' Fans

I have been a great fan a Dawkins since I read The God Delusion - then I read all his other books, which was a treat as I am a science nut. I have also watched every video he has ever made that was available in the US. I was so excited to read his autobiography that I pre-ordered the physical book, plus the audible version. He and his wife do a masterful job of reading his work.

I hate to say, but I found this book a disappointment. It was rather boring - filled with the names of all his friends, mentors, teachers, etc. He mentions his first wife, Marion Stamp, only as a scientific collaborator, without a word about her personality or their relationship. It really was about the making of a scientist. Period.

I certainly didn't expect a class act like Dawkins to write a tell-all autobiography, but this was way too dry. Very few tidbits about about his personal life, pets, or other interests would have been a treat.

This book is for die hard Dawkins' fans only.

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Quite a disappointment.......

I am a big fan of Dawkins. His book the God Delusion has been one of the most influential in my life and the Selfish Gene was ground breaking in the 70's and is still relevant today. So it was with great enthusiasm that I dove into his autobiography.

Although most authors shouldn't read their own works, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Dawkins. He is charming and funny. I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed hearing about his ancestors, his childhood in Africa, and the sad life he endured as a little boy sent away to boarding school. I was also able to get a sense of his budding intelligence and his "appetite for wonder."

But that is the only good news in this book. For reasons only he knows, as he moves into his early adult years and begins to teach at university, he becomes bogged down in very detailed and pedantic discussions about some of his research. My god, it was tedious and uninteresting. Then the book is over and he has yet to get to the 70's when he wrote the Selfish Gene - the part of his life that I was most interested in and for which he is best known. I was fed up and disappointed by the end of the book. Unless you have an unquenchable interest in all things Dawkins, use your time more wisely and listen to one of his other books and hope that his next installment is more interesting.

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A few grains of gold in an ordinary biography

Richard Dawkins is an amazing scientist. I have always thought so and this first part in his autobiography trilogy do reinforce my favorable view on Dawkins. His greatness, in my opinion, primarily lies in his unequaled ability to convey science to the general public using a language which should make him eligible for the Nobel prize in literature (seriously!). His book, the selfish gene is probably the book that have meant the most to me personally, all categories, and reading excerpts from it in this book made me remember what a great book it was, and still is. In fact, reading “An appetite for wonder”, made me decide to re-read Dawkins original best-seller (which I am now doing).

Yes, Dawkins is a fantastic writer and scientist, but this book, on the whole, did not live up to my admittedly high expectations. Perhaps others will disagree with me but I am not personally very interested in great people’s childhood, unless it is truly extraordinary. Yes Dawkins grew up in Africa and that was probably interesting, however, I would personally have preferred if this section was significantly shorter or left out.

The book gets more interesting when Richard gets into Balliol college, Oxford. As a University teacher one of my favorite sections of the book was Dawkins description of the education system in Oxford. Their system in which students each week study a new topic by reading up on the scientific literature and try to form hypotheses, and then discuss what they have learnt with tutors who are also leading scientists made me, well… jealous. He claims that students at oxford never asked the question, “will this be on the exam?”, which is a question I get all too frequently…

Following his description of the education system in Oxford a semi-interesting description of his early years in academia follows. The book, in my opinion reaches its climax towards the end when Dawkins discusses and reads excerpts from the Selfish Gene. I realize it may sound nerdy but just hearing a few lines from that book can increase my pulse significantly, and it was interesting to get to understand how the book came about. I was also pleased to find out that, like myself, the great writer Richard Dawkins does not write his book in one go. Rather, every sentence that he writes have been written and re-written many times. Like the natural selection of biological organisms, this way of writing should lead to evolution of better sentences and in the end a better book. This is certainly the case with the Selfish Gene.

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4 people found this helpful

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There's not much new material

There is nothing wrong with this book. I would be quite interesting to someone new to Dawkins. If you have read many of his books and watched the BBC specials, then you are already familiar with a good portion of the story.

I would have said his performance was excellent except that I went to an appearance where he read from the book. His performance in person was quite funny, lively and emotional. The Audible read was more reserved.

I found the book didn't grab my attention until he wrote about his graduate work and beyond. It seemed to end abruptly as well. I have a feeling an authorized 3rd person biography would be much more interesting.

You know you're going to read it anyway. Why bother reading these reviews? It's good, it's just not his best

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Not to my liking.

What disappointed you about An Appetite for Wonder?

It was a bit boring. Never got past the first hour if that long.

What was most disappointing about Richard Dawkins’s story?

Not the inspitong story I expected from such an exceptional person. Odd;y enough I'd say it was far to ordinary.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward ?

No one different. It wasn't the narration it was the story.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Bored.

Any additional comments?

I wish I could return it but found out about that option too late for this book to be eligible.

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Fascinating Read

I've been a Dawkins fan for a long time, it was great to find out about the first 20 odd years of his life

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Interesting Account of Richard's Formative Years

Fans of Richard Dawkins will enjoy An Appetite for Wonder. This is the first of two installments of his published autobiography, and covers the first 35 years of his life, up until the time he published his first book The Selfish Gene. I listened to the audiobook, which was read by Richard.

Richard is a brilliant scientist and science communicator, a great writer, and an elegant speaker; and I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will jump right in to his second autobiography, Brief Candle in the Dark. I wish I had read this prior to meeting and chatting with him in Dallas in 2018, I could’ve asked him some relevant questions like if he was still infatuated with Elvis rather than blathering like a fan-boy.

Anyone familiar with Richard’s tone in his science and atheist published works will be surprised how pleasant his tone is in this one - very warm and witty. He talks lovingly of his parents, who brought him to Africa where he spent a great deal of his childhood, and of other relatives he was close to growing up. His parents and a number of relatives were also scientists and inspired him to be a scientist. Richard includes a number of his mother’s diary entries about his youthful antics in this book, all read by his wife (now separated), Lalla Ward. His experiences in Africa were fascinating as one might imagine. What a place to grow up. He and his family eventually find their way back to England and he is sent an all-male boarding school at age seven, which prepares him for eventual acceptance in to Oxford. Some of his boarding school anecdotes are charming and some are rough like teen age boys can be. The story I thought was particularly entertaining was his discovery and love of the music of Elvis. His father once caught Richard dancing and singing along to an Elvis album playing loudly in the house, thinking his parents were both out. Another story I enjoyed was his rebellion against religion and attending church service at his Anglican school at a young age. You see the origin of Richard the non-believer and he explains how his rejection of faith and the supernatural started. That being said, he talks very little about his atheism in the rest of the book.

During the recollections of his Oxford days, Richard talks about his research work and gets a little deeper in to the science which I thought was less interesting. Later, he goes in to detail of his writing experience with his first published book, the massively successful The Selfish Gene, in which he also does a dive in to the science behind it. I enjoyed this book very much but would’ve rather heard about more life experiences during this period of his life.

In the last chapter he looks back upon his first 35 years and goes through some “what-if” scenarios pertaining to major decisions he made and experiences he had during his life up to this point. Finally, he talks about his greatest scientific hero, Charles Darwin, and how he and every other biologist treads in Darwin’s footsteps. Richard goes on to copy what Darwin did at the conclusion of his autobiography – list his personal faculties lacked or possessed, and how his life experiences shaped the person he became.

I’m giving this five stars as I learned a lot about Richard and it was a joy to listen to. Going in to this I knew relatively little of his formative years, probably only what he's talked about in the live speaking events I've attended.

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no lasting damage

dawkins says being molested by one of his teachers at a church of england boarding school had no "lasting damage".. no lasting damage at all...

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A good told story

Objectively the life of Richard wasn't that intersting but he made it intersting. Discussing some of his early work and the relationships he had formed, Dawkins made the listening of his life story a good use of time.

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