Called "one of the best nonfiction writers alive today" (Steven Pinker) and a "prize-fighter" (Nature), Richard Dawkins cheerfully and mischievously looks back on a lifetime of tireless intellectual adventure and engagement. Exploring the halls of scholarly inquiry and stardom he encountered after the publication of his seminal work, The Selfish Gene, he affectionately lampoons the worlds of academia, publishing, and television and studs the pages with funny stories about the great men and women he's known—including Douglas Adams, Christopher Hitchens, John Maynard Smith, Dame Miriam Rothschild, Nathan Myhrvold, Richard Leakey, Carolyn Porco, and Philip Pullman. Dawkins offers here a candid look both at what encouraged him to shift his attention from the laboratory to the intersection of culture, religion, and science and at many of the primary figures in the merger between scientific and literary fields known to some as "The Third Culture."

On the publication of his tenth book, the smash hit The God Delusion, a "resounding trumpet blast for truth" (Matt Ridley), Dawkins was catapulted from mere intellectual stardom into a circle of celebrity thinkers dubbed "The Four Horsemen," which included Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. Shedding new light on the book's publication and content, Dawkins makes clear the boundary between literary assault and literary satire. Brief Candle in the Dark allows the reader a closer look at the brilliant succession of influential books that grew naturally out of his busy life, highlighting the ideas that connect them and excavating their origins.

Throughout, Dawkins shares with us his infectious sense of wonder at the natural world, his enjoyment of the absurdities of human interaction, and his bracing awareness of life's brevity: all of which have made a deep imprint on our culture.