Research scholar emerita, B. Rosemary Grant recounts her amazing accomplishments with humility and humor in this delightful memoir. Growing up in the Lakes District in England, Grant was surrounded by wildlife. Since her village, Arnside, was near a tidal bore, she quickly learned to read the tides. She learned to love science because, as she puts it, she was surrounded by science. Like many women pursuing a career in the sciences, however, she faced numerous obstacles; hence, the “one step sideways” in the title. Even her forward-thinking father believed that a university career and a family were mutually exclusive. Fortunately, Rosemary met Peter Grant while teaching embryology in Canada. The two would fall in love, go on to marry, and forge a rare partnership that would greatly profit the field of evolutionary biology. Though she had to forestall her Ph.D. project while Peter actively pursued his, Rosemary later earned her Ph.D. from University of Uppsala. Combining research with family life, Rosemary produced a landmark study of rapid evolution in the Galapagos that germinated from forty years of research.
Don’t miss this incredible story of an evolutionary scientist who combined her love for science with love and devotion to her family, the environment, and many social causes.