At a time when science can seem complex and remote it has a greater impact on our lives and
to the future of our planet than ever before. It really matters that its discoveries and
truths should be clearly and widely communicated. That its enemies from the malicious to the
muddled the self-deluding to the self-interested be challenged and exposed. That science
should be brought out of the laboratory taken into the corridors of power and defended in the
maelstrom of popular culture. No one does this better than Richard Dawkins. In bringing
together his forewords afterwords and introductions to works by some of the leading thinkers
of our age - Carl Sagan Lawrence Krauss Jacob Bronowski Lewis Wolpert - and a selection of
his reviews both admiring and critical of a wide range of scientific and other works Books
do Furnish a Life celebrates the writers who communicate the ideas of science and the natural
world in both fiction and non-fiction. It celebrates the courage of those who write about their
experiences of escaping religion and embracing rationality of protecting the truths of science
and analytical rigour against charlatanry and obfuscation.
