The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a little hard for me to keep straight all the different kinds of dinosaurs and other animals that are mentioned throughout, but that's a minor complaint. There's actually a handy chart in the front matter that names most of the big (pun intended) players, so I could have checked if I'd really needed to know. Being somewhat aware of the dino story, there weren't a lot of surprises here, but I loved the detail about the transitions between periods and what the world was like across the hundreds of millions of years we're talking about. I also enjoyed the personal and personable style of the author and the way he names many of the other scientists whose work moved the needle forward in terms of our understanding. Also, as another small town Illinois boy, I enjoyed hearing some of the author's “origin story” from his days as a high school dino hound. Even though there's nothing particularly controversial here, I'm looking forward to discussing this with my book club next week.