Another fossil book

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I'm thrilled to introduce the latest book in the 52 Things series!

52 More Things You Should Know About Palaeontology is out. You can buy it direct from us, on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, and it will soon be available all over the world via Amazon's other stores.

In common with all the books from Agile Libre, it is a scholarly text with some weird features. For example:

  • It's fun and easy to read. Each of the 52 essays is only about 700 words long.
  • It costs $19, not $49 (I am not making that $49 up. Welcome to academic publishing!)
  • It's openly licensed, so you can re-use any of the content with attribution but without permission.
  • $2 from every sale goes to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology to support their work.

A book for everyone

Like the first 52 Things on fossils, it's not just for palaeontologists. No matter who you are, I hereby guarantee that you'll find something useful and interesting in there, or your money back. I mean, just look at some of these chapters:

  • A closer look at fossil sex, by Benni Bomfleur & Hans Kerp — in flagrante!
  • A snake with four legs, by David Martill — chronic limb loss!
  • Birds of a fibula, by Jon Tennant — dino bones!
  • Fossils for sale, by Tony Doré, OBE, of Statoil — selling shells!
  • Gods and monsters, by Andrew Taylor — miracles!
  • How kangaroos got their bounce, by Benjamin P Kear — just so!
  • Impossible frogs in the Deccan Traps, by Michael Oates — igneous fossils!
  • In search of the Balearian mouse goat, by Alun Williams — mouse goats!
  • Interview with a Triceratops, by John Scanella — dinosaurs forever!
  • Micro-dung and its uses, by Wyn Hughes — tiny poo!
  • Traces in the terrarium, by Daniel Hembree — experimental ichnology!
  • Vertebrate palaeontology: more than fossil bones, by John Hutchinson — see dino run!

A huge thanks to the 50(!) authors of this volume. Together, I estimate they have over 1000 years of experience to share. Imagine that for a moment. All that learning, centuries in the field, decades in the library, or squinting down microscopes... just to write an essay for you! 

Massive thanks as well to Alex Cullum and Allard Martinius, both of Statoil. It takes a good deal of tenacity to rally 50 people to do anything, let alone write a book together... and they've done it twice. And they've nailed it again — check out what Prof David Polly (Indiana), president of the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology had to say about the book:

“[It] looks fantastic. There is a lot of useful and high-level information in it, plus it is entertaining to read. I’m also pleased to see several SVP members in the author list. It deserves to be a great success. (The other books in the series are equally wonderful... having worked with eigenvectors daily for decades, I nevertheless learned something from Ruelicke’s chapter in the Geology volume.)”

I hope you enjoy the book too!

Have you read 52 Things... Rock Physics? If you enjoyed it, or even if you didn't, we'd love a short review on Amazon.com :) Help spread some geophysics goodness.