The Very Short Introductions series, which now includes Mark Lomolino’s new book Biogeography, aims to give “anyone ... a stimulating and accessible way into a new subject” (p. ii). In such an holistic discipline as biogeography, in such a short book, finding the hooks to engage a diverse audience and represent the field seems like an impossible task. But having co- authored a, if not the discipline’s preeminent, full-size biogeography text (Lomolino et al. 2016), probably few are as well positioned as Lomolino to distil biogeography’s essence.