From Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/117047.The_Blind_Watchmaker

I've got reviewers block.

To overcome this, I'm going to write a page of absolute garbage that may only be tangentially related to this book. In other words I'm going to do what I normally do anyway.

Here's the bit where I write about where I got the book and why: I picked this book up at a charity book stall for fifty pence. The cover was dull, but it had 'Dawkins' in big letters and I knew that I'd read a book by him before (The God Delusion) and that I'd almost enjoyed it and that he was famous for being a pain in the posterior regarding religion and evolution and such. It was one of those 'I'll get it just I case I feel like reading it but I'm not going to make an especial effort to read it and it's only fifty pence' kind of purchases. The other thought on my mind was that I'd seen it for full price in Waterstones and the price was therefore bargainous. It kind of takes me back to when I was a kid with no money looking at all the expensive records and books and comics and sweets that I wanted but couldn't have. Then Christmas would come around and I would get some money, but it was never enough to buy everything I wanted so I had to settle for less. And now, when I can afford any book, record or comic my heart desires, I still buy books for fifty pence and listen to free music on the radio and think about all the comics in my attic that I'll never read again because that was something I did back then and the feeling just isn't there anymore. And I think about satiated desires and about how life is empty without an object of desire, yet how frustrating it is to have a desire that cannot be fulfilled due to one lack or another.

Then I step back.

Take a deep breath.

And I look around the room and have a little think.

My biggest problem with evolution is that I don't have children.

This book is all about the survival of genes, and genes don't survive without children.

My genes won't survive and this is one of the most sobering and depressing thoughts I've ever had.

Survival of the fittest = my genes being weak.

I sat - stock still - staring at those words. Silent on the outside, yet twitching on the inside with the shame of having weak genes.

Then I fall into the comforting arms of the thought that these are just thoughts and that this book is just based on thoughts.

These things we call thoughts are of little substance (putting aside their consequences of course).

It's good to see the word 'evidence' in the title of this book and to remember that the word most commonly associated with evolution is 'theory'.

Maybe we'll never know the reality beyond the theories.

Maybe it's up to me to decide my own reality.

Within limits of course.

After all, even those who paint themselves into corners need only wait for the paint to dry.

Brigantes Bar monthly York meet up of the Bookcrossing crowd - yay!

Spotted at the Brigantes.

The best book I've read this year. I hasten to add that the book was already water-damaged when I 'caught' it, maybe the reason Robert was able to nab it for only 50p.
Releasing at the July meetup.

Picked this up at a previous meetup and apparently forgot to catch it.

Not actually read because the print is so small it kept giving me headaches. Have an ebook copy instead - so bringing along to the meetup.