Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

This is a truly wonderful book about our evolutionary heritage. Based on real scientific research, the process of how the earth was formed and how life on Earth developed is carefully explained in beautiful prose and with a great sense of wonder. The life and work of Charles Darwin is retold. The workings of DNA are also described. Of course, everything is comprehensible to the layperson, and in fact is very enjoyable to read.

Much of the book deals with various animal behaviors such as mating behaviors. A great deal of the later chapters deal with primate behaviors, which vary from species to species. The authors make a convincing case that the differences between humans and the other primates are only differences of degree, not of kind. We are, in other words, a particularly clever sort of ape.

There is just a great deal of wonderful stuff in this book, so I give it my highest recommendation. In fact, especially if you are sceptically-minded, you can pretty much assume that anything by Sagan and Druyan is going to be well worth your time.