Population Genetics and Microevolutionary Theory

This is an excellent book on population genetics. Just the right balance of theory, math and real-world examples. The explanations are superb - I'm not new to population genetics, but this book opened my eyes to many things that I thought I understood already. One of the most common themes in this book is the approach of looking at evolution from the perspective of the gamete. The authors swears by it and takes every opportunity to point this out. I'm not sure this is an overwhelmingly accepted idea in the field, but it makes reading the book quite fun. The examples that Alan chooses to illustrate the explained concepts deserve a special mention. They are amazing! Many of them are based on genetics of human populations and are absolutely stunning! It's just ten times more fun to read about humans than about birds and bees. One slight warning - don't take these examples as close to truth and do your own research. Some of them are based on shaky old data that barely reaches statistical significance. For example, the story of Tamils (mentioned several times throughout the book) loosing deleterious alleles due to increased inbreeding is based essentially on a single paper from 70-s with the number of such alleles being "not statistically different from 0" (which does not mean much if you think about it). But don't let this small thing bother you - it's still probably the best book on population genetics out there. Don't miss it!