Reviewed by Allison W. Bronson (California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt)

Grant, B.R. 2024. One Step Sideways, Three Steps Forward: One Woman’s Path to Becoming a Biologist. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. ($23.96 cloth with 20% PS discount, $20.97 e-book with 30% discount.)

Reading One Step Sideways, Three Steps Forward, Dr. B. Rosemary Grant’s memoir, feels like one of “The Greats” of evolutionary biology is having a conversation with you over a cup of coffee. The adventure story of Grant’s life is one of resilience, resourcefulness, and individuality.

In several ways, the book is a great message for our times. In reading about the author’s early life and the negative feelings expressed (even by her own parents) when she was trying to enter science, readers will be struck by how far society has come in its attitudes about women. However, Grant shows that we’ve come this far because strong and determined women pushed society forward.

Much of the book shares the Grants’ academic journey through graduate research and their famous finch research on the island of Daphne Major. Their incredibly detailed observations and the thoroughness of their research program is very much on display here. So is their skillful connection of natural history curiosities with genetic and ecological investigation. For parents in science, the tales of raising children during remote fieldwork are a joy to read and will inspire you to take your kids in the field (where safe—or mostly safe—to do so)!

In the later portion of the book, Grant discusses travel, both for personal and professional reasons. She writes about visiting collaborators in various exciting locales, invited speaking engagements, and travel for personal reasons. This section of the book emphasizes both the importance of a global perspective in addressing problems of conservation, as well as the interconnectedness of science. 

I was especially excited to review this book because of the parallels between my and Grant’s personal-professional balancing acts. Like Grant, I am a wife and a mother, married to a fellow academic with whom I collaborate on various paleontological projects, including fieldwork. The prevailing message of the book is that scientists are human beings with families and relationships, and the “sidesteps” of your career are not setbacks. In fact, the author’s various “sidesteps” of personal life (raising children, working as a teacher, moving countries for academic appointments) enriched, rather than detracted from, her scientific life.

Grant writes of the ways her and her husband’s perspectives on evolutionary questions were complementary (a genetics perspective and an ecological perspective). I think this sentiment is one from which all readers can deeply benefit, not only women or those navigating a complex personal relationship with science. Whether from research collaborations, marriage, raising children, or just talking with our friends and family outside of academia, our relationships with others increase the quality of our science. This message, woven throughout One Step Sideways, will inspire readers to have faith in their own academic journey.