Review: Life
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsThe story of the creatures great and small who have graced the planet then and now, and of the scientists who have studied them, marvelously told by a senior paleontologist at London's Natural History Museum. No armchair analyst, Fortey punctuates his narrative with vivid personal accounts of his own experiences, beginning as a Cambridge undergraduate when he collected fossil trilobites along a fierce and windswept shore in Spitzbergen. What follows are richly detailed chapters that chronicle the emergence of algae and other one-cell plants that populated the oceans, creating a groundswell of nutrients and sediments vital to life at all successive stages. He is quick to acknowledge the role of chance, the possibility that later life forms might have been completely different had one or another earlier organism held sway. He also neatly dispatches common errors, such as Hoyle's panspermia theory. He deals with human origins with equal finesse, giving credit to important research, putting past controversies about evolution into cultural context, and reminding us that new discoveries may rewrite ideas about human evolution yet again. Fortey's narrative offers a number of wonderful set-pieces, including his description of the explosion of new life forms during the Cambrian era. And he nicely mingles small, telling details with a clear overview, as in his description of the fossil record in the British county of Devon, whose lake and mountain basin deposits offer ""a kind of temporal schizophrenia"" (which defines the ""Devonian"" period when life moved landward). ""There is sight and insight,"" Fortey comments admiringly about a colleague at one point. The same can be said about Fortey himself. His wonderful description of the emergence and proliferation of life on earth combines the vision of a scientist with an intimate knowledge of the fossil record with the insight of a scholar for masterful interpretation.
Review: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
User Review - Wanda - GoodreadsI love the combination of autobiography and science in this book. I love Richard Fortey's writing style and I appreciate his sense of humour. Because of this book, I still have a strong desire to see ... Read full review
Review: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
User Review - Stewartwalker - GoodreadsA major disappointment. Some of the worst writing I have seen. A couple of examples: "You do no have to be a fanatical reductionist to understand that the soul of life is carbonaceous and the soul of ... Read full review
Review: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
User Review - Mills College Library - Goodreads576.8 F738 1999 Read full review
Review: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
User Review - Deborah O'Neill Cordes - GoodreadsBeautifully written, informative, and evocative. I've never read Fortey before, and I will add his newer works to my "to do" list. Read full review
Review: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
User Review - Paul - GoodreadsA fantastic book Read full review
Review: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
User Review - Eric - GoodreadsMy brother realizes I am a paleontology geek, so I was hooked to "Life" the moment I picked it up! Like Fortey, I revel in the minutiae of life's march through the ages, from the Pre Cambian ... Read full review
Review: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
User Review - Lynn - GoodreadsWell-written and accessible history of the world's first four billion years. fascinating. Learned a tremendous amount. Read full review
Review: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
User Review - Fiona - GoodreadsI gave this to my mother to read, and in her own words she's no scientist but she was hooked and thoroughly enjoyed Richard Fortey's wonderful exploration of life, geology and some if the ... Read full review
Review: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
User Review - Carol - GoodreadsI ended up just skimming through the final half of this book after trying to read the first half. I tired of reading the author's travel logs (and even his travel photos) and a lot of the book I've ... Read full review
