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For November 2022, we will be reading The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us.

Please use this thread to post questions, comments, and reviews, at any time.

Is this the same author as Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs? I thought that was a pretty popular book so I expected The Rise and Reign of the Mammals to be easy to get but it's not so much. My library system has no copies in any format and even my local Barnes and Nobles doesn't have it on the shelf. I'm trying to decide whether to order it or use an audible credit. Is anybody else listening?

Jessica wrote: "Is this the same author as Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs? I thought that was a pretty popular book so I expected The Rise and Reign of the Mammals to be easy to get but it's not so much. My librar..."

Yes, it's the same author. It's definitely available from Amazon, and here is the link to online Barnes & Noble: . One of the problems may be that the paperback edition has not been published yet.

But it's also definitely available in my local library. Have you tried requesting your library to order it or borrow it with an interlibrary loan? Since it's a fairly new book -- published in June 2022 -- they may just not have gotten around to it yet.

Betsy wrote: "But it's also definitely available in my local library. Have you tried requesting your library to order it or borrow it with an interlibrary loan? Since it's a fairly new book -- published in June 2022 -- they may just not have gotten around to it yet."

Thanks Betsy. I didn't realize it was so new. My library does not have a large budget so this book must not have been a priority. But I was able to order it through an interlibrary loan. I hope it doesn't take too long!

This is one of the reasons why we insist that any book nominated for the group read cannot be too new. It takes a while for any new book to become available everywhere. Not everyone can or wants to buy books from Amazon. And small libraries have limited budgets so they have to depend on their users to let them know what they want to read. That takes time.

This book just barely met our guidelines when it was nominated for this month's read and still some people are having trouble getting it. Maybe we should expand the guideline for publication from three months to six months. On the other hand, members understandably want to read books that are as up to date as possible.

It's a dilemma.

Betsy wrote: "Maybe we should expand the guideline for publication from three months to six months."

Agreed.

Betsy wrote: "Maybe we should expand the guideline for publication from three months to six months. On the other hand, members understandably want to read books that are as up to date as possible."

I get both sides. I want to read up to date books too. On the other hand, I don't want to spend $30 on the latest and greatest book every month.

Then I think if I had had the foresight to order The Rise and Reign of the Mammals from my library as soon as it was nominated it would probably be in my hands right now. That makes me not want to change the 3 month rule. Next month's book by Ed Yong is new and it has been on my library's shelf for months and I know people in the group have been waiting to read it or more likely, have already read it.

I enjoyed this read! Here is my review:

An interesting and comprehensive, albeit lengthy, read/listen about early mammalian foundations. Much of this book was quite dense, not unlike a textbook, but Brusatte is a talented storyteller and managed to weave in compelling vignettes, both real (stories of field work) and imagined (possible scenarios of how certain early mammals came to be fossilized in certain locations). It's fascinating but hardly surprising how mammals have evolved over time throughout the various geological epochs, ice ages, and environmental catastrophes.

Some other interesting books in a similar vein:
Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution by Rebecca Stott
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quammen
Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution by Jonathan Losos

CatReader wrote: "Some other interesting books in a similar vein:
Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution by Rebecca Stott
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quammen
Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution by Jonathan Losos"

We read The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life in 2019. Here is the discussion thread:
/topic/show/...

I enjoyed The Rise and Reign of the Mammals as much as The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, which is to say, immensely. The separate evolutions of the same adaptations in various distantly related species was particularly interesting. I think it's called convergence?
According to the family tree the author provides, humans (primates) are more closely related to rodents than to dogs and cats. The author doesn't make a big deal about this nugget of information, but one could say a lot about it!
I hope everyone enjoys this one as much as I did!

I just finished this book. I enjoyed it, though I sometimes had to take breaks from reading, because all the details just ran together. Here is my review.

I had to take a lot of breaks as well but I did finish. I have a deep interest in a lot of different subjects but paleontology is only of mild, passing interest to me so this book was a bit harder for me to read and understand. When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time looking up instead of down. I appreciated the author's nod to mankind's ascent to the moon on page 389. In a book full of so much great information, it is interesting that is what I remember most. :-)

IDK when I'll be able to read this book, but I'm curious to see how it compares to Panciroli's Beasts Before Us: The Untold Story of Mammal Origins and Evolution

Just started reading this book. I'll let you guys know what I think when I finish it.

Herman wrote: "IDK when I'll be able to read this book, but I'm curious to see how it compares to Panciroli's Beasts Before Us: The Untold Story of Mammal Origins and Evolution"

Herman wrote: "Just started reading this book. I'll let you guys know what I think when I finish it."

Forgot to mention that I've since finished reading this book. I enjoyed it more than its dino counterparts (I.e. "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs" & "The Age of Dinosaurs", which I reviewed: /review/show... ), probably b/c I didn't have to worry about taking notes for a future review. For that reason, I also can't say whether it's objectively better/worse than its dino counterparts.

As for Panciroli's book, I still haven't read it myself, but I did see that friend Yasmin rated it much less highly than this book (1* vs. 4*: www.goodreads.com/review/list/2135804... ). We've rated the same books similarly, so I probably wouldn't like Panciroli's book.