Rob Dunn's A Natural History of the Future is a fascinating look at the present moment in terms of the vast scale of the evolution of life. And here's a spoiler alert: the future doesn't include humans.

This isn't a book about climate change, although that's the context for the book. Instead, it is about how species adapt: how some species, specialized to a specific host or environment, are vulnerable to go extinct--such as the Mammoth louse--while others have adaptive traits that make them ideal candidates to live beyond the Anthropocene Era. Species like crows, for example, and rats.

Dunn gets to his specialty the last half of the book as he moves into microscopic organisms, the individuals that make up the vast majority of "life" as we know it. Dunn shows there abilities to adapt and mutate make them the ideal survivors, even as their hosts face excinction.

In a final chapter, Dunn draws everything together effectively and thoughtfully. I'm smarter for having read this book. You will be too.