As a practicing ecologist, I found Avise's account an interesting autobiography. In the tradition of E.O. Wilson, it recounts how his love of the natural world and his intellectual curiosity combined and led him to take up an interdisciplinary career studying issues at the interface of natural history and genetics, fields that previously were studied separately. While his healthy ego occasionally gets the better of him, these occasional passages are forgivable -- Avise's achievements and professional publications support that he has the credentials to back it up.