#dinosaurs

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This week's at the library: three more books from my employer's January sale
- The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush: Museums and Paleontology in America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Paul D. Brinkman from the University of Chicago Press;
- Shaping Humanity: How Science, Art, and Imagination Help Us Understand Our Origins, a wonderfully illustrated book by John Gurche from Yale University Press;
- Rethinking Human Evolution edited by Jeffrey H. Schwartz, a volume in the Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology from @themitpress.

@bookstodon

A photo of three books standing on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books. On the left, The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, showing a hardback with a two-tone black and blue cartoon illustration of a dinosaur peering into the window of an apartment building. This is a famous period engraving by Motty, published in 1886, that shows Iguanodon roaming the streets of 1880s Paris. In the middle, Shaping Humanity, a black hardback showing a lifelike colour drawing of an ape looking directly at the viewer. The ape is reminiscent of an orangutan, except it has dark-brown to black skin and orange sclera surrounding its black pupils. On the right, Rethinking Human Evolution, a black hardback showing a collage of fossil human skulls executed in a reddish-ochre colour.

This week's at the library: Three more books I bought during my employer's January sale of overstock:
- Saurian: A Field Guide to Hell Creek (@Tomozaurus, @mojoceratops),
- Extinctions: Living and Dying in the Margin of Error
- and Rock, Bone, and Ruin: An Optimist's Guide to the Historical Sciences from @themitpress

@bookstodon

A photo of three books standing on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books and part of the beech-coloured laminate floor. On the left, Saurian: A Field Guide to Hell Creek, showing dark grey / blue hardcover book with a colour illustration of Tyrannosaurus rex, here reconstructed as a beefy dinosaur with a bulging skull, rather than a skinny reconstruction that shows the contours of bones. In the middle, Extinctions: Living and Dying in the Margin of Error, showing a white hardback with a colour photo of a polar bear across the bottom and a trilobite fossil across the top. On the right, Rock, Bone, and Ruin, showing a yellow hardback with. Each word of the title is cut out of a black-and-white photo of a rock, the bones of a tail, and a ruin (what looks to be the Colosseum) .

At long last, a new review! The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs is easily the most comprehensive popular work currently available, combining a pleasingly uncluttered visual presentation with accessible yet nuanced entries for almost every dinosaur under the sun.

https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2026/03/14/book-review-the-princeton-encyclopedia-of-dinosaurs-3-volume-set-ornithischians-sauropods-and-theropods/

@princetonupress @princetonnature @bookstodon

Quick progress shot: I am delving deep into the upcoming Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs. One down, and I'm partway into the second. Look out for an in-depth review in a few weeks...

@princetonupress @princetonnature

A photo of three books standing on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books and part of the beech-coloured laminate floor. On the left, standing up, the ornithischians volume of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, showing a colour illustration of two dinosaurs grazing on some shrubs. The book is heavily annotated with Post-it notes. On the right, a pile of the remaining two volumes. At the bottom, the theropods volume with a green spine; on top, the sauropods volume with a red spine.

This week's at the library: An early review copy of the 3-volume The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs. What will you be doing with your January? Well...

@princetonupress @bookstodon

A photo of three large hardback volumes of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, standing upright on a small, brown, wooden table. The out-of-focus background shows black shelves full of books and part of the beech-coloured laminate floor. Each cover shows a colour illustration of several dinosaurs in a naturalistic landscape.

quoted Ends of the World by Peter Brannen

Peter Brannen: Ends of the World (2017, HarperCollins Publishers)

"As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most …

Dinosaurs are the protagonists so far in the history of animal life on land — not some peculiar preamble to our own story. Throughout the epochs they inhabited every niche — predator and prey, herbivore and carnivore — and spanned every size, from the pigeonlike anchiornis to the hangarsized argentinosaurus. Sauropods like these were so monumental that their methane farts might have been partly responsible for making the Mesozoic so warm.

— Ends of the World by  (43%)

This is a majestic book. It really blew my mind. It is all so beautiful, mesmerizing, and fucking scary.

And maybe funny #Mesozoic #Farts #Dinosaurs