The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

I reviewed this book awhile back, when the COVID pandemic was just in its first year.  It's an old one, but without further ado, enjoy these words.

What the-A book review?  I read books?!  When did this happen?!  I don't read anything that isn't related to video games, obviously.  Besides, nowadays I read primarily non-fiction.

...Wait, it's about dinosaurs and is non-fiction?  Well...I guess I can review it then...this is The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A new history of their Lost World by Steve Brusatte.

The front cover!  Look at the Dinosaurness!

 The cover arts good, and on my edition it claims it was a New York Times Bestseller...not that really means much, so was Twilight.  Anyway, to me I think the cover is the least important part of the book, but the words on the back, well, that's what draws you in really, at least, it does for me.

Holy crap, there's a lot of -words- back here.  Mostly other authors or organizations saying how awesome this book is.   There's also a brief blurb of the author, Steve Brusatte, who is a paleontologist at the university of Edinburgh, a graduate of the university of Chicago and Columbia, and has named fifteen new species and led pioneering field work through the world.  That's...about it, except that he would also really like you to to buy his book, but that goes without saying. 

Anyway, while the about the author blurb barely exists compared to most books I've read, the amount of people saying 'this is a good book' is astounding. The words actually describing the book also drew me in, basically saying that 'The things you learned about dinosaurs 20 years ago is now wrong and learn what people think they are now today by reading this book.' though it takes about three or four paragraphs to get that point across and in a much better way then I could've.  

I got this book as a birthday present after my mom and I stumbled across it in a shop a good...either a year ago before the pandemic really started or two years ago before that, I am unsure.  Either way, I mentioned I'd love it, left the store and forgot about it immediately.  My mother however bought it for my coming up birthday, and I read it soon after I got it.  So I'm going off memory here a lot of the time.  But I really wanted to review something and since I'm -apparently- allergic to finishing anything, I decided to review this book.

 The book starts with the Triassic period, when dinosaurs first appeared, all the way to their end and even beyond it a little.  During this book, the author talks about the proto-dinosaurs, their rivals as it were, the sauropods in the Jurassic, the tyrannosaurs in the Cretaceous , and even T. Rex, of course.  

They cover dinosaurs all over the globe, from Europe to the Americas to Africa.  Not much is said about Antarctica because, well, yeah.  It's not exactly easy to dig for fossils in frozen soil, even if it had more habitable conditions millions of years ago. 

They cover new techniques used in fossil finding and data gathering, mostly dealing with computers but said in layman terms enough that the uninitiated into dinosaurs can understand.  Honestly, I was surprised how good this book was.  I loved it, and it's easy to understand for me, at least.   

Easy to understand, gives what it says it will on the lid, and an enjoyable read filled with interesting real life people and dinos, I give this book a 4 stars out of five.  I feel slightly guilty with this, it might deserve a 4.5, but, eh. 

Anyway, that's it for now, stay safe peeps!