The subtitle of The Beak of the Finch — A Story of Evolution in Our Time — is the vital thematic thread of this groundbreaking Pulitzer Prize-winning book, rendered into audio by Victor Bevine’s masterful narrative performance. “Charles Darwin never witnessed natural selection in action,” states the author, Jonathan Weiner. But Princeton University professors Peter and Rosemary Grant have seen the evidence, in flourishing abundance, during their 20-year study of finches on the Galapagos Island of Daphne Major. The Grants and their assistants did so with the very finches that famously captured Darwin’s attention during his five-week exploration on the Galapagos Islands. “Evolution in our time” means that wherever there is life, the force that drives evolution, natural selection, is everywhere and always present. Evolutionary changes thus occur at a much more rapid pace than had been envisaged by Darwin, indeed, than had been thought by the Grants’ contemporary scientists. The stunning and startling beauty of this book is achieved through the convergence of an interesting collection of scientists, newly discovered findings about finches, great writing, and the extraordinary, ultra-exotic island of Daphne Major.

Victor Bevine narrates with a powerful, expressive voice, always actively modulating with the flow of the text, shifting his narrative delivery and tone with shifts of meaning, stress, and emphases, capped with a fluent on-the-mark narrative momentum. He has one of the most dynamically active voices in the business. His The Beak of the Finch narration is an expressive merging of the scientific and the polemic with the overflowing living biological island of wonder that is Daphne Major: its finches and the scientists studying them, the evidence gained from the research, and the island itself, which is unique even by the standards of the Galapagos Islands. Bevine is keenly and imaginatively in touch with everything in this book. He finds himself on this enchanted island that embodies, to a near miraculous degree, the driving force of life on earth. And these finches! With no fear of humans, they will land right on you: your hand, your head, your nose, into your cup of java. It is these finches, more specifically the beaks of the finches and the oscillating changes of size and shape within 20 years of research, that demonstrate evolution in rapid action and mark a fundamental change in our understanding of the theory of evolution. The spirit of Bevine’s inner cello is tuned to these extraordinary representatives of the life force, the scientists studying them, and the wondrous stage upon which these events take place, Daphne Major. —David Chasey