I don't know if I ever disclosed this, but...back before I knew I was doing Storm World, I was seriously contemplating writing a narrative account of the Dover evolution trial for my second book. Now, well, I'm kinda glad I didn't. You see, there are not one, not two, but three books in the hopper about the subject, the first of which is already out. They are: The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA, by Gordy Slack; 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania, by Matthew Chapman; and
Monkey Girl: Education, Evolution, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul, by Edward Humes. This last one came out last month. I don't know about you, but in my view, Matthew Chapman's book has by far the most interesting title. Plus I met him at the trial and found him a very nice guy. Plus, he's actually a real live Darwin descendent. Still, I wouldn't want to be in competition with two other seemingly interchangeable books, even if Chapman's seems most likely to stand out from the crowd. Monkey Girl's author apparently won a Pulitzer, but his book promises to tell the story "from the perspectives of all sides of the battle," which sounds to me like it might be too "balanced"....but in any event, I encourage you to check all of them out, and then write a 5,000 word essay comparing and contrasting. Actually, I bet the New York Review of Books has already assigned one...
