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Insects, in particular the evolutionary genetics of insects, are the focus of Michael Majerus’s work at the University of Cambridge’s genetics department. So it is a high accolade for a book to be tagged “The best insect book I have come across in my career”. He’s talking about the Encyclopedia of Insects, edited by Vincent Resh and Ring Carde (Academic Press, 2003). It’s a monumental book, he says, spanning 1276 pages. Rather than the terse, dry tome he expected, Majerus says it is alive with interest and diversity. “From biological control to bubonic plague, from forensic entomology to insects as food, and from ladybugs to locusts:…