Eric Simons's DARWIN SLEPT HERE in San Diego Union-Tribune

Scott La Fee of the San Diego Union-Tribune surveys the recent books on the life of times of Charles Darwin, including Overlook's Darwin Slept Here: Discovery, Adventure, and Swimming Iguanas in Charles Darwin's South America: "Charles Darwin was a prolific and diverse thinker, writing 25 treatises on subjects ranging from volcanic islands and barnacles to orchids and earthworms. Far more books, though, have been written about him. Like other great minds of science, from Newton to Einstein, Darwin has been the regular subject of scholarship and biography, especially this year, the 200th anniversary of his birth and the 150th of "On the Origin of Species. . . Young and unemployed, Eric Simons decided to follow Darwin's example, retracing the Englishman's 19thcentury travels through South America. He re-explores the histories, legends and people that Darwin first wrote about, providing a fresh perspective about how much life has - and hasn't - changed."