The Rise and Reign of the Mammals

January 1, 2022

Leading paleontologist Brusatte follows up the New York Times best-selling The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs with The Rise and Fall of the Mammals, summing up a next act that includes humans, whose world dominance has caused an extinction event costing an estimated 80 percent of wild mammals in the last century alone (75,000-copy first printing). In A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman, Elkins-Tanton--principal investigator of NASA's $800 million Psyche mission--tells her story and that of the nearly all-metal protoplanet 16 Psyche, located in an asteroid belt 589 million kilometers from Earth and optimum not just for mining but more crucially for imparting the story of how planets like ours were formed (50,000-copy first printing). In What Your Food Ate, MacArthur-honored geologist Montgomery joins with biologist Bikl� to argue that good health starts with good soil and good farming practices. A National Book Award finalist for The Soul of an Octopus and New York Times best-selling author of The Good Good Pig, Montgomery returns with The Hawk's Way to describe her work with Jazz, a bright-eyed female Harris's hawk with a four-foot-plus wingspan and decidedly a predator rather than a pet (60,000-copy printing). Award-winning theoretical physicist and cosmologist Padilla explains Fantastic Numbers and Where To Find Them, plumbing nine numbers explaining how the universe works, from the impossibly large Graham's number to 10^{-120}, which measures the unlikely balance of energy needed to allow the universe to exist for more than a blink of the eye (100,000-copy first printing). By detailing the discovery of Tyrannosaurus Rex in the Montana wilderness, the New York Times best-selling Randall explains the triumphant emergence of New York's American Museum of Natural History while also showing how The Monster's Bones inspired an ongoing fascination with dinosaurs and their role in shaping Earth. Multi-award-winning sf author Robinson recounts everything he's learned in the more than 100 trips he has taken to The High Sierra since his first, life-changing sojourn in 1973 (50,000-copy first printing). From a theoretical physicist whose international best sellers have gracefully explained to lay readers how the universe works, Rovelli's There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness offers essays embracing not just science but literature, philosophy, and politics.

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Starred review from June 15, 2022
Another outstanding work of paleontology from the author of The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs fascinate everyone, and Brusatte, professor of paleontology and adviser to the Jurassic World film franchise, has named more than 15 new species. However, mammals are his first love, and this delightful account will convert many readers. According to the popular belief, dinosaurs ruled the Earth until they were wiped out by a meteor strike 65 million years ago, whereupon mammals succeeded them. This is correct except that mammals not only succeeded dinosaurs; they existed alongside them back to their beginning. In fact, both share a common ancestor that appeared perhaps 325 million years ago. This small lizardlike creature evolved into two major lineages, one eventually becoming reptiles (including birds), the other mammals. Readers who remember high school biology know that mammals have warm blood, hair, and mammary glands that produce milk. Such true mammals did not appear for 100 million years, and these features do not fossilize well, but Brusatte excels in explaining how paleontologists figured matters out. Only mammals chew; most have complex teeth. Birds and reptiles swallow food whole; their teeth, when present, look alike. Mammals have three tiny bones in their ears, which allow them to hear better than other vertebrates, which have only one. Ancient mammals and pre-mammals were small. Their surviving bones were fragmentary and their teeth nearly microscopic, so early paleontologists sifted tons of dirt to detect minuscule fossils until the present century, when new sites, especially in China, have revealed spectacularly complete skeletons, often including hair, feathers, and embryos. Many readers consider humans the most interesting mammal, closely followed by extinct behemoths such as mammoths and saber-toothed tigers. Brusatte, however, gives humans "about the same attention as horses and whales and elephants. After all, we are but one of many amazing feats of mammalian evolution." Throughout, the author employs lucid prose and generous illustrations to describe the explosion of mammal species that followed the disappearance of dinosaurs. A must for any list of the best popular science books of the year.

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