Johanna Angermeyer , My Father's Island (o/p). The author uncovers the hidden past of her relatives through lyrical reminiscences on the Angermeyer family's struggle to settle on Santa Cruz, Galápagos.

 

William Beebe , Galápagos : World's End (Dover). This pleasing book, which combines eager prose with keen scientific observation, brought the Galápagos to the attention of a new generation of travellers in the 1920s, and its popularity sparked a number of ill-fated attempts to colonize the islands. Beebe was the director of the New York Zoological Society and went to the Galápagos as head of a two-and-a-half-month scientific expedition, but problems with the water supply meant that he spent only "six thousand minutes" actually there.

Peter J. Bowler , Charles Darwin: The Man and his Influence (Cambridge University Press). Of the countless Darwin biographies, this does a better job than most of stripping away the myths from the Darwin legend, and paints a realistic backdrop illustrating his place in contemporary scientific society.

Isabel Castro and Antonia Phillips , A Guide to the Birds of the Galápagos Islands (A & C Black/Princeton University Press). Comprehensive and easy-to-use bird guide, including colour illustrations and detailed descriptions to help identification.

Ainslie and Francis Conway , The Enchanted Islands and Return to the Island (o/p). Humorous stories of an American couple's thwarted attempts to settle in the Galápagos in the 1930s and 1940s.

Charles Darwin , Voyage of the Beagle (Penguin). A hugely enjoyable book with a chapter devoted to the Galápagos; original insights and flashes of genius pepper Darwin's wonderfully vivid descriptions of the islands' landscapes and wildlife. As revolutionary science texts go, The Origin of the Species (Penguin) is arguably one of the most accessible, though still much harder work than Voyage of the Beagle .

Adrian Desmond and James Moore , Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist (Penguin/W. W. Norton). The enormous, definitive and best-selling biography of Darwin, so thorough and wide-ranging that it also serves as a compelling study of Victorian Britain as a whole.

Jack S. Grove, et al. , The Fishes of the Galápagos Islands (Stanford University Press). By far the most comprehensive guide to marine life in the Galápagos, using documents and research dating back to Darwin's visit in 1835, with illustrations or photos of over 400 fish species found within a 100km radius of the islands. However, weighing in at almost a thousand pages and with a price tag of over US$120, it's strictly for fanatics.

Thor Heyerdahl , Archaeological Evidence of Pre-Spanish Visits to the Galápagos Islands (Norwegian University Press; o/p). On the back of his ground-breaking Kon-Tiki expedition, this is Heyerdahl's academic attempt to unravel the mysteries of early human settlement on the islands.

John Hickman , The Enchanted Isles (Anthony Nelson; o/p). A succinct, well-researched and entertaining history of human life on the islands, especially strong on the many colourful episodes concerning early pirates and castaways.

Paul Humann (ed), Reef Fish Identification: Galápagos (New World Publications). Colourful photos and concise information on Galápagos reef fish in a slim and manageable field guide.

Michael H. Jackson , Galápagos (Academic & University Publishers Group/University of Calgary Press). The most accurate and complete guide to the natural history of the Galápagos Islands containing a broad and readable overview of geography, geology, flora and fauna, and conservation. The book includes some colour plates and a wildlife checklist.

Colney K. McMullen , Flowering Plants of the Galápagos (Cornell University Press). Galápagos flora has often played second fiddle to the islands' famous animals, but this excellent field guide helps to redress the balance with its succinct descriptions of over 400 plants, their locations, and plenty of colour photos.

Tui de Roy , Spectacular Galápagos: Exploring an Extraordinary World (Hugh Lauter Levin Associates) and Galápagos: Islands Born of Fire (Warwick Publishing). Stupendous photos of Galápagos wildlife and landscapes.

Keith Stewart Thomson , HMS Beagle: The Story of Darwin's Ship (o/p). One for ship enthusiasts rather than nature buffs, as it concentrates on the voyages of the famous brig, with Darwin only impressing himself on the story halfway through the book.

John Treherne , The Galápagos Affair (o/p). An excellent overview of the extraordinary events on Floreana in the early 1930s that led to a series of unexplained deaths and disappearances, including a large appendix detailing the author's own theories.

Kurt Vonnegut , Galápagos (Flamingo/Delta). A darkly comic novel which, turning natural selection on its head, has a handful of passengers on a Galápagos cruise ship marooned on the islands as the only survivors of a war and global pandemic. "Big brains" had been the species' fallibility, and a million years' evolution takes humanity in a quite different direction.

Jonathan Weiner , The Beak of the Finch (Vintage). The work of two British scientists who have spent twenty years cataloguing Darwin's finches - in effect, witnessing the processes of evolution first hand - is explored in this fascinating book.

Margret Wittmer , Floreana (Anthony Nelson/Moyer Bell). The last surviving of Floreana's original colonists describes how she conquered the privations of Galápagos life, and gives her version of events in the "Galápagos affair" .