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Infinite Life: Jules Howard ****

There's been something of a trend for 'big picture' books that trace a feature of life, the universe or whatever from billions of years ago to the present day, arguably started by Henry Gee's excellent A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth. The new book by Jules Howard follows this trend in tracing eggs back to their earliest origins and following them step by step through to (biologically) recent times.

I was a bit wary about this one. It felt in danger of being a lengthy catalogue of eggs that would only appeal to the ovoid equivalent of a trainspotter. But I had very much enjoyed Howard's Wonderdog and found it hard to believe he wouldn't have found a way to make the story of the egg much more interesting - which on the whole he has. The slight reservation here is that there are an awful lot of species described and many variants of the egg concept. But Howard's excellent storytelling skills allow him to get away with this by giving us a series of scenarios from different eras... and also because the egg is a quite remarkable thing.

We get water-based eggs, soft shelled and hard shelled eggs on land, live birth followups to the egg and a lot of material on the quite remarkable organ that is the placenta. There are fish, amphibians, dinosaurs, insects, mammals, birds and more, all busily engaged in egg production, egg care and general eggy wonder. Sometimes it's the small details that fascinate - for example, the dark machinations of the newly hatched cuckoo in kicking its rivals out of the nest.

The one thing I was a bit surprised by was a lack of consideration of the eggs of non-egg laying mammals like us. There was lots about foetuses and the placenta - and the remarkable progress of newborn marsupials to the pouch. But hardly a mention of mammalian (and within mammals, human) eggs themselves. This seemed a strange omission. If I'm going to be picky, I would also suggest that Howard sticks to biology - early on he describes the Sun in the early years of the Earth as 'just part of a constellation' - given that a constellation is just a pattern of stars in the night sky imagined by human beings, it's hard to see how the Sun could ever have been that.

If I'm going to be really picky, I'd also query the title? Why 'infinite'? There's nothing infinity related here. Overall, though, a thoroughly enjoyable exploration of eggs through the history of life. And, of course, we now know the answer to that age old question. The egg definitely came before the chicken.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
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