A brilliant, engaging, and highly literate espionage-cum-existential novel, John Banville's The Untouchable concerns the suddenly-exposed double agent Victor Maskell, a character based on the real Cambridge intellectual elites who famously spied on the United Kingdom in the middle of the 20th century. But Maskell--scholar, adventurer, soldier, art curator, and more--respected and still living in England well past his retirement from espionage, looked like he was going to get away with it when suddenly, in his 70s and sick with cancer, he is unmasked.
Life on Earth: An Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Ecology, and EvolutionLife on Earth is intended to introduce "younger generations" to biological diversity, "the variety of life on Earth at all its levels, from genes to biogeographic regions, and the ecological and evolutionary processes that sustain it." The encyclopedia's activist perspective and conversational style will appeal to students, especially those writing position papers.Eldredge is curator of paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), and a number of the 60 contributors are AMNH scientists.
