Nature invited Dr. Xing Xu, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, ChineseAcademy of Sciences, as one of its regular reviewers to name their pick of this year’s book publications. Dr. Xing Xu, recommends Why Evolution is True (by Jerry A. Coyne, Oxford Univ. Press: 2009.) as his favorite of 2009.

　  Jerry Coyne’s book Why Evolution is True demonstrates the validity of evolutionary theory using the latest available data. Coyne is hugely knowledgeable, and an excellent writer. He uses multiple strands of data in such a clear and sometimes humorous way that an open-minded reader can hardly avoid learning a great deal about evolution: from feathered dinosaurs to vestigial organs, and from the unexpressed or fragmented genes present in all life forms to the complex distribution of Earth’s flora and fauna. Xu Xing is a professor at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, ChineseAcademy of Sciences, Beijing, China.