Who doesn’t like to read about dinosaurs? This contemporary book might not have the impact of classics like The Dinosaur Heresies by Robert Bakker — published almost forty years ago now — but it gives a fairly short and mostly entertaining overview of more recent discoveries and controversies, along with numerous biographical anecdotes of the author’s experiences as a paleontologist. It is remarkable how much we now know about the dinosaurs, from their social behaviors to the color of their eggs and feathers, while at the same time having so many basic questions unanswered, such as exactly how many distinct species are represented by any given set of fossils, or when, where, and how modern birds diverged from the doomed main branch of the clade.

The writing intended for general readers but can be a bit dense at times, with Latin names flying fast and furious and the introduction of numerous technical terms, but there were enough interesting facts embedded in the narrative to keep me reading to the end of the Cretaceous. There are a couple of handy timeline diagrams at the back of the book which are a help to the non-expert in keeping track of which geographic age is which. The author has some opinions about several undecided questions, but does a good job of making clear the distinction between established facts and the various theories which attempt to explain them.

Recommended for all dinosaur fans.