When the Earth Was Green is a well written, layman accessible monograph on biosphere evolution on Earth by Riley Black. Released 25th Feb 2025 by Macmillan on their St. Martin's Press imprint, it's 304 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.
The author's enthusiasm is contagious. She writes realistically of the freezing, baking, bug infested, unpleasant, inhospitable, sometimes dangerous realities involved in the field work of paleontology. In the end, it all comes down to passion for the work (described almost like a gambling addiction - for science!), stubbornness, and luck (mostly luck). There's a fair amount of humor as well in her writing.
Along with the field descriptions, there's a lot of engaging background science, delivered in accessible, digestible bites. It's not a graphically engaging book, there are no pictures, maps, or diagrams in the review copies. It's also not at all academically stilted. The chapter notes are minimal and there aren't any annotations. The reference chapter is limited, but provides enough sources for further reading to keep keen readers engaged for a while. There are a number of interesting appendices as well.
It's aimed at an adult audience, but paleontology mad adolescents will likely find a lot to love here as well. 12 year old me would've been in raptures.
Four stars. Well reasoned and engaging. Philosophical and moving in places. Definitely worth a look for natural science readers/fans.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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