Genre: Non-fiction

Review – Pyramids

Posted February 1, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Review – Pyramids

Pyramids

by Joyce Tyldesley

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 288
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

From the development of monumental architecture around 3,000 BC to the fabulous edifices that rose up from the desert plains of Giza, Pyramids chronicles how and why Egypt's pharaohs built on so grand a scale. Joyce Tyldesley, writer, lecturer and broadcaster on Ancient Egypt, cuts away modern myth and prejudice to reveal the truth behind the conception, design and constructiion of these astonishing structures. By tracing Egypt's pyramid-building society back to its roots, Tyldesley not only shows how and why the Egyptians built pyramids, but how the pyramids helped to build Egypt itself.

Joyce Tyldesley’s Pyramids is a non-sensational deep-dive into the pyramids, how they were built (not in architectural detail, admittedly, but with some explanations of e.g. levelling them, how they used bedrock, etc), what they were built for, and basically everything we know about them and the sacred landscapes around them. There’s a bit of general Egyptian history as well to add context, but it’s mostly about the remains and what we can discover from them, and what they might have meant to the builders.

It’s pretty thorough, and though I could’ve wished for colour illustrations, there are some black and white illustrations and diagrams where it helps to illustrate the text (though the text isn’t organised to flow around them very well).

If you’re a huge fan of ancient Egyptians and the pyramids, this is worthwhile. I found it fascinating, and clearly-written, but it might be a bit dry if you don’t have a deep interest in the subject. It doesn’t really discuss any of the conspiracy theories except very briefly to dismiss them, except for digging a bit into the so-called Pyramid Inch.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – The Green Ages

Posted January 29, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Review – The Green Ages

The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability

by Annette Kehnel

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 352
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

Fishing quotas on Lake Constance. Common lands in the UK. The medieval answer to Depop in the middle of Frankfurt.

These are all just some of the sustainability initiatives from the Middle Ages that Annette Kehnel illuminates in her astounding new book, The Green Ages. From the mythical-sounding City of Ladies and their garden economy to early microcredit banks and rent-a-cow schemes, Kehnel uncovers a world at odds with what we might think of as the typical medieval existence.

Pre-modern history is full of inspiring examples and concepts that open up new horizons. And we urgently need them as today's challenges - finite resources, the twilight of consumerism, growing inequality - threaten what we have come to think of as a modern way of living sustainably.

This is a revelatory look at the past that has the power to change our future.

Annette Kehnel’s The Green Ages is trying to offer a way forward for society based on examples of the past — not necessarily saying they’re fully transferrable, or that everyone can simply swear themselves to eternal poverty, or anything like that, but to show that there are ways forward that aren’t endless profit. That “progress” doesn’t have to look like this. I admire the sentiment, and I even agree that some aspects of the past are worth re-examining and potentially emulating, or at least adapted.

That said, her examples are either deeply naive or very disingenuous, or a mixture of both. For example, to promote communal, self-sufficient living, she uses the examples of the Benedictines and the Cistercians — which famously became extremely wealthy, at the very least, if not outright exploitative. She says the sale of indulgences was an early form of crowdfunding, and I think this quotation is a good one to show how weird her interpretations are:

Indulgences worked roughly like modern crowdfunding initiatives, with all the attendant opportunities as well as risks. They were used to finance major infrastructure and creative projects, and sustained some of the most important Renaissance artsists, from Raphael to Michelangelo. Yet they also show that the crowd’s patience can eventually run out, and were a major trigger factor for the Reformation.

This is just… bizarre.

In the end, where I have my own understanding of a subject, I can tell that she’s completely misunderstanding the past. I can’t evaluate all of her examples for myself, but based on what I can evaluate, I trust none of it.

It’s a nice idea for a book, but it just… doesn’t hold up to the most cursory critique (because believe me, my grasp on history is often tenuous where it doesn’t directly intersect my literary knowledge).

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

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Review – The Meteorites

Posted January 28, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Review – The Meteorites

The Meteorites: Encounters With Outer Space & Deep Time

by Helen Gordon

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 265
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

From your window you can see the stars and distant planets: light years away, it's easy to think that our existences and theirs will never intersect. Yet meteorites - mysterious, irregular rocks of sometimes immense value - connect us with the vastness of the universe. They may have brought the first life to our planet, and today they still reveal extraordinary scientific insights.

Helen Gordon reveals the fascinating stories of fallen meteorites and the lives they've touched - from collectors to kings, scientists to farmers. She meets amateur astronomers and gem dealers, goes meteorite hunting across rooftops and learns what objects moving through space can tell us about the fragility of life on Earth.

Helen Gordon’s The Meteorites is an exploration of what meteorites are and what they’ve meant to humanity. It digs into some of the science around meteorites, but also discusses historical meteorites (collected long after they fell) both scientifically and socially, and meteorites that were adapted by people of the past into keepsakes and monuments, and other modern ways of engaging with meteorites (like collecting them).

For me, there was maybe a bit more focus on the social side of meteorite-appreciation than I was interested in. People wanting to appreciate the aesthetics of meteorites and use them for decorations aren’t that interesting to me — for many of them, meteorites are like any prestigious art object, a way to show off. Some are interested in the rarity, whether or not the meteorites are beautiful. Ludicrous amounts of money changes hands, with some specimens getting lost to science. Gordon writes about non-scienticist collectors in quite a few chapters, and while some are responsible and willing to share their meteorites for testing etc, I have questions about treating meteorite collection like a hobby.

Mind you, citizen science around micrometeorites could be pretty cool and useful, so I guess it’s not so clear-cut.

Anyway, where it stuck to the more scientific stuff I was more interested, but I didn’t particularly feel connected with the whole… sense of wonder, numinous, connection-to-the-cosmos type bits. I get that more through doing science or reading about people doing science, generally; the idea of standing where a significant meteorite fell is fairly uninteresting to me.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – Enshittification

Posted January 25, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Review – Enshittification

Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It

by Cory Doctorow

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 348
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Enshittification: it’s not just you—the internet sucks now. Here’s why, and here’s how we can disenshittify it.

We’re living through the Enshittocene, the Great Enshittening, a time in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It’s frustrating. Demoralizing. Even terrifying.

Enshittification identifies the problem and proposes a solution.

When Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification, he was not just finding a funner way to say “things are getting worse.” He was making a specific diagnosis about the state of the digital world and how it is affecting all of our lives (and not for the better).

The once-glorious internet was colonized by platforms that made all-but-magical promises to their users—and, at least initially, seemed to deliver on them. But once users were locked in, the platforms turned on them to make their business customers happy. Then the platforms turned to abusing their business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. In the end, the platforms die.

Doctorow’s argument clearly resonated. Once named, it became obvious that enshittification is everywhere, so much so that the American Dialect Society named it its 2023 Word of the Year, and was cited as an inspiration for the 2025 season of Black Mirror.

Here, now, in Enshittification the book, Doctorow moves the conversation beyond the overwhelming sense of our inevitably enshittified fate. He shows us the specific decisions that led us here, who made them, and—most important—how they can be undone.

Cory Doctor’s Enshittification is a book-length treatment of his theory of why various products and services are getting worse. The basic theory is that first, these products and services treated customers well to entice them and get them on board, and get them nice and locked in. Then, they turned to businesses and offered them access to those customers, slightly enshittifying things for those customers (e.g. by pushing ads from the business customers into the feed of their friends’ posts). Then, once the businesses were also locked in, they started to hike the rates and enshittify things for them as well.

There’s more to it, but that’s the basics, and it holds up pretty well through exhaustive examples of companies both well-known (like Amazon, Facebook and Google) and less known (like a baby-rocking tool that played womb sounds to soothe babies, which now needs a monthly subscription fee). Example after example after example… stop, please, I’m already dead.

After that, though, Doctorow does start going into what he thinks can be done about it, and ends on a surprisingly hopeful note about legislation and the appetite for change. I’m not sure how much of his optimism I agree with, weary as I am from other situations where we might’ve thought the world was improving, but where we’ve backslid. That said, I know that I’m weary and pessimistic, and thus not even a little bit able to be objective.

It’s a useful book; not surprising to me, overall, almost common sense at times — but it helps to articulate everything, and like I said, ends on a surprisingly hopeful note.

I did dislike his tone sometimes (writing out “womp womp” after describing setbacks and so on really got on my nerves), but that’s a fairly minor complaint vs. the usefulness of dissecting the situation and understanding what drives it.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – The Wrong Stuff

Posted January 20, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Wrong Stuff

The Wrong Stuff: How The Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned

by John Strausbaugh

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 272
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

A witty, deeply researched history of the surprisingly ramshackle Soviet space program, and how its success was more spin than science.

In the wake of World War II, with America ascendant and the Soviet Union devastated by the conflict, the Space Race should have been over before it started. But the underdog Soviets scored a series of victories--starting with the 1957 launch of Sputnik and continuing in the years following--that seemed to achieve the impossible. It was proof, it seemed, that the USSR had manpower and collective will that went beyond America's material advantages. They had asserted themselves as a world power.

But in The Wrong Stuff, John Strausbaugh tells a different story. These achievements were amazing, yes, but they were also PR victories as much as scientific ones. The world saw a Potemkin spaceport; the internal facts were much sloppier, less impressive, more dysfunctional. The Soviet supply chain was a disaster, and many of its machines barely worked. The cosmonauts aboard its iconic launch of the Vostok 1 rocket had to go on a special diet, and take off their space suits, just to fit inside without causing a failure. Soviet scientists, under intense government pressure, had essentially made their rocket out of spit and band aids, and hurried to hide their work as soon as their worldwide demonstration was complete.

With a witty eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, John Strausbaugh takes us behind the Iron Curtain, and shows just how little there was to find there.

I gave serious thought to simply not finishing John Strausbaugh’s The Wrong Stuff by just 32 pages in. It was already apparent that he was completely incapable of giving the Soviet space programme a single word of praise, even for ingenuity with outdated and clunky tech (and ingenuity they certainly seem to have had).

As far as I can tell — having cautiously read on — he holds all those who worked for the Soviet space programme in contempt. It doesn’t matter if they were compelled or willing, whether they were frightened or fanatic, whether they lived or died. Rarely did I detect any hint of sympathy or admiration.

Now, I’m not saying the Soviet space programme should be above critique. It shouldn’t be (nor should NASA). And there were bodges and mistakes, and a great deal of luck, even behind their successes. That’s not in question. But the bias is so thick, and the sources so completely absent (aside from a “further reading” section, not even divided into chapters, there is absolutely no indication of any sourcing), that it’s impossible to trust.

It doesn’t help that he also snidely (and wrongly) dismisses Wally Funk’s flight, claiming she didn’t get into space. The Kármán line is at 100km; Blue Origin reached 107km in that flight, clearing the bar. Wally Funk went to space at last, and this smug dickhead couldn’t even look that up, claiming incorrectly that the flight peaked at 76km.

He’s also kind of a dick about Tereshkova. Not that she sounds like a delight (and not to excuse her politics), but then she wouldn’t sound like a delight, described like this.

All in all, I did gain an appreciation for the Soviet space programme’s bodgery and luck at some key junctures, wasn’t surprised by the general slipshod nature of the whole endeavour, and found Strausbaugh at best a jerk and poor researcher, and at worst, perhaps a propagandist liar still trying to fight the Cold War.

Rating: 1/5 (“didn’t like it”)

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Review – Like: A History of the World’s Most Hated (And Misunderstood) Word

Posted January 19, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Like: A History of the World’s Most Hated (And Misunderstood) Word

Like: A History of the World's Most Hated (and Misunderstood) Word

by Megan C. Reynolds

Genres: Linguistics, Non-fiction
Pages: 256
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

A comprehensive and thought-provoking investigation into one of the most polarizing words in the English language.

Few words in the English language are as misunderstood as “like.” Indeed, excessive use of this word is a surefire way to make those who pride themselves on propriety, both grammatical and otherwise, feel compelled to issue correctives.

But what the detractors of this word fail to understand is its true function and versatility—as an exclamation, a filler of space, a means of subtle emphasis, and more. “Like” may have started out as slang, but it is now an intrinsic component of fun, serious, and altogether nurturing communication. And like any colloquialism, the word endears the speaker to its audience; a conversation full of likes feels more casual, despite its content.

In this book, culture writer and editor for Dwell magazine Megan C. Reynolds takes us through the unique etymology and usage of this oft-reviled word, highlighting how it is often used to undermine people who are traditionally seen as having less status in society—women, younger people, people from specific subcultures—and how, if thought about differently, it might open up a new way of communication and validation. Written in a breezy yet informative and engaging style, this is a must-read for anyone who considers themselves a grammarian, a lover of language, and an advocate for the marginalized in discussions of cultural capital, power, and progress.

I’m not entirely sure where I originally heard about Megan C. Reynolds’ Like: A History of the World’s Most Hated (And Misunderstood) Word; I thought it was on Litsy, but the review I’d have been most likely to see there was fairly ambivalent. Maybe it was Litsy and I was just curious despite the reservations. In any case, I’m glad I gave it a shot, even though I agree that I wasn’t bowled over by it.

First: I agree with Reynolds’ points that the word “like” serves a useful purpose in casual and spoken communications, for sure, and that those who really hate it often do so out of sexism and ageism because it’s associated with young women in particular (despite actually being fairly widespread).

However, I did find that Reynolds’ introduction rambled and went on a personal tangent several times, while the various chapters wandered around, visited anecdotes, went off into blind alleys, etc. This book is as much about Reynolds’ feelings about communicating as anything, and she admits she isn’t a linguist. So that’s worth knowing going in for a start: it’s rambly, with lots of personal stuff squeezed in so you know that she has a cousin who she doesn’t speak to anymore who said she talks too much in a rude way, etc, etc. You get to know way too much about her fear of being vulnerable and her interest in stuff like “radical candour”. This is a matter of personal taste — maybe you like this in your books, but I don’t. Or at least, I didn’t in this case, not least because I don’t think I’d get on with the author.

It’s also worth knowing that despite stating her fear about robotics and AI, Reynolds is all-in on AI. This bit was honestly just bizarre to read:

Despite the obvious and alarming implications AI software and machine learning carry, ChatGPT is a tool that can occasionally be useful. Embarrasingly, ChatGPT is a useful starting point for guidance in interpersonal situations that you’ve already talked through to death with every single one of your friends and anyone who will listen, so much so that by now the opinions of others have merged with your own. When a situation calls for true impartiality, AI is a neutral party with no skin in the game. If you ever find yourself in a position where you desperately and immediately need a list of suggestions on how to set and uphold boundaries, ChatGPT will deliver, providing useful information that answers the prompt in an objective manner. The results are serviceable and delivered in a tone devoid of personality or opinion.

It goes on, but I got tired of typing it out. That’s all the lead-in to her explaining that she tried to get ChatGPT to sound a bit more human, and when she prompted it to talk in a “valley girl” style, that’s when it did sound kinda human to her.That was apparently worth boiling the planet for, laying aside any other thoughts about how she completely doesn’t understand LLMs, which are explicitly programmed to be sycophantic, and which cannot offer you any kind of opinion on anything because they do not think, they are just glorified auto-complete — a glorification which she’s enthusiastically contributing to, apparently.

Just, overall, really weak — and weaker the more I think about it, since the main points would be more impactfully stated in a much, much shorter essay, with a lot of extra padding cut out. I should probably have DNFed it when I hit the LLM part, but… sunk cost fallacy, I guess?!

Rating: 1/5 (“disliked it”)

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Review – Roses for Hedone

Posted January 15, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Roses for Hedone

Roses for Hedone: On Queer Hedonism and World-Making Through Pleasure

by Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 112
Series: Inklings
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

When a society marginalises a people, their humanity is revolutionary - in all its hunger and joy. Although long demonised, hedonism in all its forms has played a central role in how queer people sought to organise as a symbiotic system. In fact, when viewed through a queer lens, hedonism undergoes a process of transformation and embodies the "power for change", as described by Audre Lorde in The Uses of the Erotic. Today, when the queer community worldwide faces rampant transphobia, rising hate crime, and unequal access to support services - all in the context of humanitarian crises, a climate crisis, and a destabilised political landscape - such hedonism is no less necessary or, indeed, present. As we face ongoing and new challenges to creating a more fair world, let us borrow from the Ancient Greeks' understanding of love's multiplicity to explore queer hedonism not as a momentary phenomenon, but rather a transformational route through which we can learn from our past, connect in the present, and look towards the future with hope - together.

Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin’s Roses for Hedone is an exploration about how hedonism and pleasure-seeking can be part of self-care and of activism, making a space for queerness in the world and taking defiant joy in it.

Not all of the aspects of hedonism discussed are ones I really “get” (like attending raves, or casual sex), but some parts of it do ring true in terms of togetherness and helping one another — though if caring for one another is hedonism, then yikes, what a world we live in!

It’s an interesting short read, and a good reminder to take joy where you can, and make space for it, in order to fuel your ability to survive and fight for your rights and needs.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – Algospeak

Posted January 14, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Review – Algospeak

Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language

by Adam Aleksic

Genres: Linguistics, Non-fiction
Pages: 246
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

A viral linguist’s account of the ways our vocabularies are evolving, the internet’s influence on communication, and what our use of language reveals about the modern world.

From the rise of leetspeak and words such as “unalive” to the trend of adding “-core” to different influencer aesthetics, the internet has ushered in an unprecedented linguistic upheaval. We’re entering an entirely new era of etymology, heralded by the invisible forces driving social media algorithms. Thankfully, Algospeak is here to explain. As a professional linguist, Adam Aleksic understands the gravity of language and the way we use it: he knows the ways it has morphed and changed, how it reflects society, and how, in its everyday usage, we carry centuries of human history on our tongues. As a social media influencer, Aleksic is also intimately familiar with the internet’s reach and how social media impacts the way we engage with one another. New slang emerges and goes viral overnight. Accents are shaped or erased on YouTube. Grammatical rules, loopholes, and patterns surface and transform language as we know. Our interactions—and our social norms and habits—shift into something completely different.

As Aleksic uses original surveys, data, and internet archival research to usher us through this new linguistic landscape, he also illuminates how communication is changing in both familiar and unprecedented ways. From our use of emojis to sentence structure to the ways younger generations talk about sex and death (see unalive in English and desvivirse in Spanish), we are in a brand-new world, one shaped by algorithms and technology. Algospeak is an energetic, astonishing journey into language, the internet, and what this intersection means for all of us.

Adam Aleksic is a little bit famous (I guess; I hadn’t heard of him) due to his Tiktok videos on linguistics. He thinks he’s really great, anyway, to judge from the way he talks about his own videos and their high quality etc etc. He never lets you forget his experiences as a linguistics enthusiast on social media, either: his story of that is deeply intertwined with his analysis of trends and how algorithms are driving changes in the language we speak. He’s as subject to them as anyone, as he at least does make clear.

As you might guess from that intro, I found certain aspects of Algospeak a touch frustrating. Aleksic is so deeply embedded in it, it’s hard to believe that he has any real measure of objectivity here, though I don’t actually disagree with much of what he writes (which feels like common sense and/or matches what I know from elsewhere).

It was overall an interesting read, albeit one that made me feel fairly old and out of touch when it discussed some of the memes, and sent me calculating dates going “no way” about how old certain memes are (and how old I was when they first appeared).

It’s also inevitably going to feel dated pretty much immediately, though I think the examples stand.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)

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Review – The Far Edges of the Known World

Posted January 9, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Review – The Far Edges of the Known World

The Far Edges of the Known World: A New History of Ancient Civilisations

by Owen Rees

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 314
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

When Ovid was exiled from Rome to a border town on the Black Sea, he despaired at his new bleak and barbarous surroundings. Like many Greeks and Romans, Ovid thought the outer reaches of their world was where civilisation ceased to exist. Our fascination with the Greek and Roman world, and the abundance of writing that we have from it, means that we usually explore the ancient world from this perspective too. Was Ovid's exile really as bad as he claimed? What was it truly like to live on the edges of these empires, on the boundaries of the known world?

Taking us along the sandy caravan routes of Morocco to the freezing winters of the northern Black Sea, from Co-Loa in the Red River valley of Vietnam to the rain-lashed forts south of Hadrian's Wall, Owen Rees explores the powerful empires and diverse peoples in Europe, Asia and Africa beyond the reaches of Greece and Rome. In doing so, he offers us a new, brilliantly rich lens with which to understand the ancient world.

Thanks to archaeological excavations, we now know that the borders of the empires we consider the 'heart' of civilisation were in fact thriving, vibrant cultures – just not ones we might expect. This is where the boundaries of 'civilised' and 'barbarians' began to dissipate; where the rules didn't always apply; where normally juxtaposed cultures intermarried; and where nomadic tribes built their own cities.

Owen Rees’ The Far Edges of the Known World was a random choice from the library, and I had a good time with it. The premise is that we know a lot about the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, and how they viewed the other peoples they bumped up against (and sometimes invaded), but most of what we know about those other peoples is what the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians have recorded.

But of course there’s more there in archaeology, in other accounts, and by reading between the lines. Rees doesn’t dig deeply into any one location/group of people, and is careful to note the limitations of the evidence he does discuss, but he does his best to give us a less biased picture of these other worlds.

It’s hard to pick a favourite, but I think maybe the stuff about the various areas in Ukraine. It’s a part of the world I haven’t read much about in general, but which has come up in a few recent books, and broadened my horizons a little!

I mostly found the book very accessible, but did find toward the end that my attention kept wandering for some reason; I think that was me, and not the book — Rees’ writing is fine and easy to read.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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Review – Spinosaur Tales

Posted January 8, 2026 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Spinosaur Tales

Spinosaur Tales: The Biology and Ecology of the Spinosaurs

by David Hone, Mark P. Witton

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 320
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Spinosaur Tales explores the exciting, sometimes controversial world of spinosaurs. Bringing this creatures back to life with stunning illustrations, world renowned palaeontologists David Hone and Mark P. Witton present the latest views on the evolution, anatomy and lifestyles of these enigmatic reptiles.

I don’t know a lot about spinosaurs — they’re not a dinosaur I ever personally fixated on — but I was definitely keen to pick up Spinosaur Tales based on previous books by David Hone. It’s pop-science, but it’s thorough and well-sourced all the same: as the authors are careful to point out, it’s a rapidly-changing field due to a lot of interest in spinosaurs, and some of the information might already be out of date by the time the book was printed, let alone whenever it finds its way to new readers. They ground their interpretations in the known facts, and explain when things might change due to new evidence, in general — it’s all pretty conscientious.

Since I didn’t know much about spinosaurs going in, there was a lot to learn: I hadn’t realised that Baryonyx was a spinosaur, for example, and I had no idea that the spinosaurs include some of the largest theropods in general. I also hadn’t thought much about how dinosaur eyes would look, and… it makes sense, but not how I had somehow imagined!

The authors do well at contextualising stuff so you can understand regardless of whether you’re a spinosaur superfan (or a dinosaur superfan in general); some of it probably feels repetitive if you’re familiar already, but for me, I needed the detailed grounding in what we actually know about spinosaurs. I’d probably have lumped them in with Dimetrodon based on the ‘sail’, I must confess…

Witton’s illustrations add a lot too, though I’m still kinda wondering what a lipped dinosaur would’ve looked like and how it compares to common illustrations (since they convincingly suggest that spinosaurs at least probably had lips).

Really fascinating, and clear too.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

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