Eta: quattro miliardi di anni (1997)

Professor Fortey takes the reader on a chronological tour of the the biological history of earth. However, his story is not a boring slog through the strata, but an eclectic stroll among fascinating organisms. Fortey includes many asides in his narrative, including important aspects of geology, portraits of eccentric paleontologists and personal anecdotes about fossil hunting is unusual locations. This book manages to summarise paleontological controversies in a fair manner without bogging down the story. I found the author's descriptive writing style to be rich and lyrical. ( )

Another really excellent piece of natural history writing by Fortey, this a clear, readable account of life on Earth from the beginning. ( )

My impatience with this book was rarely the book's fault, but more often just friction coming from the fact that this is an evolution story for the lay reader, and I've already heard all the basic outlines so many times before. I'd bought this so many years ago, when the information would have been fresher, and I might have liked it better then. But, that's what it is.

There were some magical descriptive moments, and I appreciated some of the discussions on how scientific controversies were/are resolved. But a lot of familiar information plus some odd asides made large chunks of the book a slog.

Not sure exactly who I would recommend this to. In general, I think most readers would be better off reading a more recently written book. ( )

Fortey's enthusiasm and humor kept things going when the text got a little too dense for me. It did seem to linger on the early life forms and then rush through the emergence of mammals and humans but I guess that's true of the actual time-line of life on earth itself. I liked that it included some background and anecdotes about the paleontologists and biologists who discovered and shaped so much of what we know about natural history today. ( )

Encyclopedic overview of a truly overwhelming topic. The author is clearly passionate about his topic, and communicates it wonderfully. ( )