This little book is the ideal companion for a student beginning a tertiary biology course. Its structure around topics such as heredity, sex and recombination, metabolism, behaviour and life origins follows a pattern evident in most good courses. The book touches on the major aspects of biology by presenting the science and then an appraisal of where the next developments in the field will be, or need to be, directed. These more general elements of biology have not changed that much since its date of publication in 1986 and, even where they have, the thinking of a foremost theoretician such as John Maynard Smith is on the mark about new directions. Recent developments in neuroscience have been major, but nevertheless Maynard Smith defines the evolving state of the science in a relatively timeless way. Importantly, Maynard Smith is a gifted explainer and can clarify complex concepts simply and with humour.