On the Origin of Species

I have heard of the phrase "Survival of the fittest" since childhood in contexts unrelated to Charles Darwin's (this phrase was added in a later edition) usage. It always piqued my curiousity on how he (and some people before him) proposed this revolutionary idea. They didn't observe the evolution of any species. Nor could they run experiments in the lab.

It turns out that this influential and still controversial theory 'evolved' out of hundreds of anecdotal observations! This book describes the evidence Darwin and other naturalists collected over decades and the resulting facts and inferences. This is a multi-part book and finished after more than two months of arduous reading.