Infinite Life
An Epic New Story of Life On Earth
Published on 8. May 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-78396-848-0 (ISBN)
Description
Every animal on the planet owes its existence to one crucial piece of evolutionary engineering: the egg.
It's time to tell a new story of life on Earth.
'Jules Howard's egg's-eye view of evolution is dripping with fascinating insights' ALICE ROBERTS
'So much passion and poetic prose' BBC Radio 4, Inside Science
If you think of an egg, what do you see in your mind's eye? A chicken egg, hard-boiled? A slimy mass of frogspawn? Perhaps you see a human egg cell, prepared on a microscope slide in a laboratory? Or the majestic marble-blue eggs of the blackbird?
Every egg there has ever been, is an emblem of survival. Yet the evolution of the animal egg is the dramatic subplot missing in many accounts of how life on Earth came to be. Quite simply, without this universal biological phenomenon, animals as we know them, including us, could not have evolved and flourished.
In Infinite Life, zoology correspondent Jules Howard takes the reader on a mind-bending journey from the churning coastlines of the Cambrian Period and Carboniferous coal forests, where insects were stirring, to the end of the age of dinosaurs when live-birthing mammals began their modern rise to power. Eggs would evolve from out of the sea; be set by animals into soils, sands, canyons and mudflats; be dropped in nests wrapped in silk; hung in stick nests in trees, covered in crystallised shells or secured by placentas.
Whether belonging to birds, insects, mammals or millipedes, animal eggs are objects that have been shaped by their ecology, forged by mass extinctions and honed by natural selection to near-perfection. Finally, the epic story of their role in the tapestry of life can be told.
'In a book that brilliantly evokes past eras, Howard provides a new perspective on the history of life on Earth.' The Mail on Sunday
It's time to tell a new story of life on Earth.
'Jules Howard's egg's-eye view of evolution is dripping with fascinating insights' ALICE ROBERTS
'So much passion and poetic prose' BBC Radio 4, Inside Science
If you think of an egg, what do you see in your mind's eye? A chicken egg, hard-boiled? A slimy mass of frogspawn? Perhaps you see a human egg cell, prepared on a microscope slide in a laboratory? Or the majestic marble-blue eggs of the blackbird?
Every egg there has ever been, is an emblem of survival. Yet the evolution of the animal egg is the dramatic subplot missing in many accounts of how life on Earth came to be. Quite simply, without this universal biological phenomenon, animals as we know them, including us, could not have evolved and flourished.
In Infinite Life, zoology correspondent Jules Howard takes the reader on a mind-bending journey from the churning coastlines of the Cambrian Period and Carboniferous coal forests, where insects were stirring, to the end of the age of dinosaurs when live-birthing mammals began their modern rise to power. Eggs would evolve from out of the sea; be set by animals into soils, sands, canyons and mudflats; be dropped in nests wrapped in silk; hung in stick nests in trees, covered in crystallised shells or secured by placentas.
Whether belonging to birds, insects, mammals or millipedes, animal eggs are objects that have been shaped by their ecology, forged by mass extinctions and honed by natural selection to near-perfection. Finally, the epic story of their role in the tapestry of life can be told.
'In a book that brilliantly evokes past eras, Howard provides a new perspective on the history of life on Earth.' The Mail on Sunday
Reviews / Votes
'Jules Howard's egg's-eye view of evolution is dripping with fascinating insights' Alice Roberts, author of Ancestors'A startlingly beautiful exploration of evolution's crucibles of creation' Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred
'Mind-bending in the best possible ways ... a joy to read' Helen Scales, author of The Brilliant Abyss
'Finally, the egg gets the recognition it deserves in this wonderfully evocative telling of its journey through time and place' Gaia Vince, author of Nomad Century and Transcendence
'One of my favourite science writers' Lucy Cooke, author of Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal
'This is as fun and engaging as science writing gets, and by the end of the book, it's astounding how much you've learned about the history of life.' Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Reign of the Mammals
'So much passion and poetic prose' BBC Radio 4, Inside Science
'Focusing on the oology in zoology, Infinite Life retells the history of life, this time from the perspective of the almighty egg.' The Inquisitive Biologist
'In a book that brilliantly evokes past eras, Howard provides a new perspective on the history of life on Earth.' The Mail on Sunday
'Infinite Life is thoroughly researched and packed with astonishing facts ... Howard brings the minutiae of his subject to life with detailed, almost tactile descriptions' Times Literary Supplement
'Animal evolution is a snap compared to the minutia of animal physiology, but Howard has done his homework and delivers a painless but lucid education on a central feature of life. High-quality natural history.' Kirkus Reviews
'The egg is a beautiful thing, far from simple and far from static. If you've never given it much thought before, this book will change that.' Geographical
'Carving out a niche in the increasingly crowded milieu of popular-science writing can be difficult, but Infinite Life stands out. It's a satisfyingly nerdy examination of eggs, rooted in an unashamed affection for this unlikely spectacle of nature' Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Nature
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'Infinite Life has the potential to change your perspective on the history of our planet. It offers a journey that will intrigue and open your mind to the wonders of all life on Earth.' Science - Fall Reads '24
'Even the most hard-boiled reader, accustomed to overlooking eggs in favor of the free-living creatures that emerge from them, will likely be softened. And delighted.' Wall Street Journal
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'Much has been written about sex and genetics, but not nearly enough about eggs. Jules Howard's Infinite Life redresses that balance.' The Daily Telegraph
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
200 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78396-848-0 (9781783968480)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jules Howard is a zoological correspondent, science writer and broadcaster, whose recent book, Wonderdog, won the 2022 Barker Book Prize for non-fiction. He writes on a host of topics relating to zoology, ecology and wildlife conservation and appears regularly in BBC Science Focus magazine and on radio and TV, including BBC Breakfast and Radio 4's Nature Table and The Ultimate Choice. He lives in Northamptonshire with his wife and two children.